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Look, I'm just a lighter to be here today and I've had a terrific time and the Satya committee have asked me to just speak about South Asian ministry in the context of the Sydney Anglican diocese. I realise there are people who are not Sydney Anglicans here, but I think the things that

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I'm going to say will apply right across. But in terms of the dioceses of Sydney, you'll find that hard pressed to find a church anywhere in our diocese and there's over 300 of them that doesn't want to reach their community with a message of Jesus.

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And you will be hard pressed to find any church in our diocese that is not engaged in some way with sharing Jesus in their community, some will do it better than others, but everyone's trying. And everyone thinks that you should do it.

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And I'm pretty sure that every one of the churches in our diocese will agree that they want to share Jesus in the community and they are trying to share Jesus in the community because Jesus says to us, doesn't he, in Matthew 20, oh, there we go, no, there we go. That's it.

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Jesus says to us, doesn't he, in Matthew 28, all thrown in heaven earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of your own nation, that's what he says. So, satya, satya, if I pronounce that okay, satya, satya, satya. That exists to reach people from South Asia.

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Now, I know that that's broader than just Indian, but just for the sake of some numbers, I'm just going to talk about people from India for a moment. And of course, I think you would already know that now there are more people in Australia that were born in India than were born in China in Australia now.

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That's about 850,000 that were born in India to about 670,000 that were born in China. And that's the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the ABS 2023 figures. Now in Sydney, in the area that the diocese covers, there are actually still more Chinese than Indian people, but people from India will overtake in the not too distant future

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on current trajectories. So, the satya network, you must reach all these people from India, and of course, like I said, there's other countries, of course, because of the command of Jesus. The command of Jesus is to go and make disciples of your own nations, so you must do it.

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Now, hopefully you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable about my Bible teaching ability, or at least my ability to read, because Jesus does not say go and make disciples of your own nation, does he? No.

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Jesus says go and make disciples of all nations. Now, the question is, who is that directed to? Who is that command directed to? Who is supposed to reach all nations?

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Is that command just for the Aussies? Just for the young Aussies? To reach all nations. All the other nationalities, you used to reach your own, but Aussies, you go and reach

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all nations, that's your responsibility. Or, you know, is that command that Jesus gives just to, you know, Bolivians or Koreans or Vietnamese or Chileans? Or is that command directed at all Christian people?

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To make disciples of all nations? Here in the diocese, we collectively want to reach all nations that are here in the diocese, here in Sydney, because pretty much all the nations are here. In fact, according again to the ABS, there are over 300 ethnicities in Australia from

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over 200 countries, the world is here. We know, don't we, from acts that God determines the times and places of people that they might seek God? So I take it then that God has brought all these people from around the world here so that

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they might know Jesus, they might not know they're here to know Jesus, but God has brought them here so that they might know Jesus. So the question is who is supposed to tell them? Is someone else supposed to tell them?

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We are all given the responsibility as Christian people to reach all nations. And guess what? We don't even have to go anywhere to do that. We can stay here and reach all nations.

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God of audience, participation, last talk of the day, keep your wake. Hands up if you know someone who is not from South Asia. If you don't know someone who is not, put your hand up, keep them up, if you know someone who is not from South Asia, try to understand every hand is up.

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Hands up if you know someone not from South Asia, and he's also not a Christian. Hands down if you think that someone else should tell them about Jesus and not you. Oh, that was confusing. Put your hands up.

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If you think that someone else should tell that person about Jesus and not you, whether I got hands up, hands down right on it doesn't matter, get the point, don't you? Do we not tell someone about Jesus because they do not belong to our cultural group? Now to be clear, I am not saying you should not reach South Asian people.

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Normally saying you shouldn't have a focus on South Asian people. You should have a focus on South Asian people. If you look at this slide, you can see that the top five increases in country of birth by number from between the two last, what's plural of census?

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Sensai? If Barnabas is Barnabas, I think Sensai sees Sensai. When you see there, in terms of the top five increases, into your first and the pal second. Yes, Satya, you need to reach South Asian people.

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Please keep doing it. They are coming and they are coming faster than anybody else. You must do that. However, you know, I am the chair of what we call the Archbishop's Chinese Ministry Advisory

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Board. Your name is much better. But that is the equivalent to the Satya Board but for Chinese. And in that board, we want to reach the Chinese here in Sydney and we have an emphasis on that.

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And like you, we have a conference every year on that. However, Matthew 28 compels us to reach out to more than just those that we are focusing on. It compels us to reach all nations who live and work and study around us.

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And as a diocese, that is what we want. We want all people reaching, all people. And furthermore, for you as South Asian Christians, God has spread you all around the diocese.

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That means God has spread you out among all the nations. Now, it is true that there are concentrations of Indian people and South Asian people. So if you look on this diagram or the red or is that orange, the orangey reddish colour, that is where.

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So this is not including people born in Australia. What this map shows is the country, by the way, you can just get this off the SPS website. This map, and it is an interactive map, is just on the SPS website. But what this shows is the highest cultural group in Sydney, that is basically the diocese,

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and to people being born in Australia. And so those orange parts, the biggest group of people there, apart from people born in Australia, are from India. All those purple ones are the ones from China.

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The greener kind of the Middle Eastern country is really interesting, isn't it? There seems to be a little bit of a concentration, and I have just got, that is North West Sydney. That is what North West Sydney looks like, and this is what South West Sydney looks like, oh, the other way around, sorry, you are right.

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Anyway, that is North West Sydney, the other one is South West Sydney. Now interestingly, as we can see there, the purple, Chinese, and the orangey reddish colour from India, actually are next to each other, right around the city, in terms of their numbers. If you go onto the SPS website, and you look up this interactive map, and you hover over

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each of those suburbs, what comes up is a drop down box, anyway, a box comes up, and it shows you the top five. Very very interesting, when you look at the purple and the red and you hover almost always, when you hover over the purple Chinese, second are Indians.

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And when you hover over the red Indian areas, second, not every single time, but most times, are Chinese. We like to live next to each other. It's wonderful, but here's the thing, what I want to show you from that map, as you see

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the different colours. That's just the top one, but generally speaking around the city, the percentages against the whole population of that area, they're still quite small. What that's telling me is that there are lots of people from lots of countries everywhere.

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So you are amongst people from all the different nations wherever you live. God has spread you all around the city. Now do you think that God has put all these nations around you because He wants someone else to tell them about the Lord Jesus?

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I figure if God wanted someone else to tell them about Jesus, He would have sent them to somebody else, but no, He has sent them to you and He has sent them to me. Who else is supposed to tell them about Jesus? In a Chinese people, I recognise that South Asia is broader than India, but I just want

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to just for comparison of numbers. Chinese people and Indian people are the two biggest non-English speaking background nations represented in the country and in the diocese of Sydney. These next tables are just the figures for the Sydney diocese.

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What the Sydney diocese covers and what I've highlighted there are all the Asian numbers. North Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, North East Asia, any Asia, Pan Asia. There are all the numbers for Asia just in the Sydney diocese and the total over a million. We make up one-fifth of the city.

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Now I suggest that maybe, just maybe, we as Pan Asians, maybe we have a greater responsibility to reach the nations here and not just our own, but all the nations. Maybe we bear a greater responsibility because the Anglo-Church has failed to reach the nations. Now that is controversial, it might be offensive, someone will probably tweet it, I'll get

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in trouble, I'll get cranky emails, people will be offended, I'll have rectus, you know, lashing down my door and ringing me up and for the fact is our Anglo-Anglican churches have not done well in reaching the nations that are here. Of course there are a few exceptions, but they are very, very few exceptions.

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Some of our churches have some other nationalities in them, but it's usually not through particular effort or intentionality or deliberation, and mostly it is not because they've done anything to accommodate the different nations. Like I said, there are a couple of exceptions, but on the whole that is not the case.

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And I say the Anglo-Church has failed, not as a judgment or a condemnation on them, but actually as a challenge to us. You see, we, you as Satya, us as the Chinese Ministry of Advisory Board Bluffer, we haven't even come close to reaching our own nations, have we? Not even close, and I'm just talking

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about the people that are here. So before we judge or condemn the Anglo-Church for failing, we've got to look at ourselves, don't we? Now, that could be an argument then, we're just going out there and trying to reach our

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own nation. Satya, you just worry about preaching Jesus to South Asians and the Chinese, they just worry about preaching to the Chinese, you know, the Vietnamese, they just worry about reaching the Vietnamese, and so forth, I've got all the Spanish speakers together to talk about

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very similar things, but no, that's not Jesus' command. It is to reach all nations. And so the question is, what are we doing to reach all nations, because Matthew 28 is as much for us as it is for the Aussie churches and the Aussie Christians?

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They may have failed, but maybe we need to take up the responsibility. And I think, to be honest, we are more well-placed to reach the nations than our Anglo-Brothers and sisters, why? Well, I don't know if this sounds familiar to you, and tell me if it doesn't.

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We are a wee culture. We think in terms of wee, not as individuals, that's already been mentioned. And wee, most often means family. And family means hierarchy.

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We also think in terms of everyone's a cousin. Everyone's a cousin. Doesn't matter how distantly you could be the cousin of a cousin of a cousin of a cousin who married a cousin does matter.

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You are still a cousin. It doesn't matter if it's by marriage. You are still a cousin as much as someone who is like a cousin doesn't. It does not matter how distant.

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We respect elders. We honor elders, and you would never have already alluded to. You would never, ever in a million years call someone of a higher generation by their first name.

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I've seen my daughters, when they were in Kindie, their Aussie friends, call the grandparent who picked them up by their first name. I was horrified. I remember driving the kids home and going, "Don't you ever, ever call your grandparents

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by their first name?" We take our shoes off, going into the house. You always take your shoe, because otherwise you'll bring them dirty. Why don't you want to bring the dirty into the house for?

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Life, of course. What is on our heart? Food, everything is about food, love and relationships and celebrations, sad celebrations or sadness.

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Everything that's got food, community happens around food, together this happy, around food. Stories happen around food, everything is food. Of course, study, study, study, study, study. What are your choices?

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Doctor, lawyer, maybe accountant, study, study, study, study, study, study. And boys are spoiled, aren't they? Boys are spoiled. And you don't leave home till you're married.

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You do not leave home when you're married. And when you are married, when you get married, and then you go to your parents place for dinner. What do you leave with? Food.

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Some of you, some of you will know menage and you're older by chocolate. Whenever I go to their place to eat, I always leave. They just contain us. Even I get that, it's wonderful.

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Is that familiar to you? I've been getting lots of nods. You know what that means? It means you're Chinese.

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You see, we're very, very similar, aren't we? And that's the point. When I do want to say to you, that is the same as just about every other non-Western culture. Very, very similar.

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See, there is a level that we get each other, that Westerners just don't understand. That's not a criticism, but it's a challenge for us, isn't it? The challenge may be our responsibility is greater to reach all the nations, not just our own.

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And if you think about it, just take Chinese and South Asians. Of course, we have it where we're concentrating on. But if Chinese are also reaching South Asians, and South Asians are also reaching Chinese, then we're both helping each other reach each other, isn't that wonderful?

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You know, I hope you find this encouraging. But hurtful Anglican Church, which is like 99% Chinese, they have just started a Nepali's ministry. They're putting their money in, and they've just started a Nepali's, you know, I just

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think that is brilliant and beautiful. That's just a picture of how we can work together for the sake of Christ in this diocese. And for those of you here that are Australian-born Indian or Australian-born Sri Lanka and Australian-born South Asian, or, you know, you might have come when you're very young and you've done

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most of your education here in Australia, you're all similar to me. I'm what they call an ABC, an Australian-born Chinese. And I don't know if this is your experience, but, you know, the Asians call me an Aussie. And the Aussie's call me an Asian.

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And I used to hate that because I never, you know, as I grew up, I never fitted anywhere, but now I love it, you know why I love it. Because I think, and it's a lot of this saying to myself, I think we, as people who straddle both cultures, are best place to bridge, best place to bridge, not just two cultures, the

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two cultures that we inhabit, but to bridge all cultures, you know why? Because we swap in and out every day, every day, and we don't even think about it. You know, people will go to an Andrews house and things like that, see six months to work out, how to go from this culture to that culture and then we just walk out the door and think

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about it. It's interesting. When my, sometimes when I've had non-Chinese friends come with me, I can remember a few times when they've been with me and I've gone to visit my grandparents, all my grandparents

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have been over at our place, and my after was like, oh, why are you talking so funny? I was like, what are you talking about? I said, what are you talking so funny to your grandparents? I said, what do you mean I'm talking, they say you change your accent when you talk

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to your grandparents? Because I start talking Chinese grandparent language. Sorry, I'm speaking English to Chinese grand, so my, and I get this funny kind of accent accent.

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And I didn't, you know, I didn't even notice, and then I started, oh, yeah, I do. You know, I just come in and out of Chinese and then Western culture all the time every day. Don't think about it.

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It's just natural. I don't get cross-cultural stress or anything. Just do it. So you are, if you're similar to me, you're South Asian, but born here or educated here,

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you're in a, God has put you in a special position to be reaching, not just across the nation, your two nations, but all nations. It's a privilege and it's a responsibility. We can use this for the gospel.

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So I want to ask you friends, do we as South Asians and Asians beg greater responsibility to reach our, not only to reach our nations, but all the nations that are here? Part of holistic discipleship, I think he's sharing Jesus with everyone and anyone with him.

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It doesn't matter where they come from. And part of what our role is, not just to reach out to the ourselves, but to teach others to do it, for you to be going into churches and teaching them how to reach South Asians, whether they're from the country or not.

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Here in the Diasis, we are not trying to build a Chinese church and a South Asian church and an Arabic church and a Vietnamese church and so forth. We're seeking to build the all nations church. That's why Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations, not so that people would

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be the disciples and then to be separated into different churches because of the location that they were born in or the color of their skin. No. We reach all nations because that's God's intention for the church, the all nations church.

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That is what brings him glory, that is what the church is to be and will be in Ephesians chapter 3. It says, his intent, God's intent was now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rules and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal

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purpose, that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now when it says the church there, in verse 10, he's talking about the all nations church. If you look back in chapter 2 and proceeding this in chapter 3, the whole point of those, the second half of chapter 2 and the first part of chapter 2, the whole point is to say

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the church is the all nations church, Jew and Gentile, every other nation together. And it is the all nations church that displays the wisdom of God. And that is what he purposed from eternity, it's not the Chinese church or the South Asian church or the Australian church or the Chilean church that displays the manifold wisdom

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of God. It is the all nations church. And that's why Jesus says, go reach them all. And that's no surprise when this last verse I'll finish with this from Revelation that's

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already pre-read out this before. There's no surprise when you look at this where it says, after I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb and they were wearing white robes and were

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holding palm branches in their hands and they cried out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. This is a picture of the eternal heaven. And it's a picture of a church.

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It is what is church, it is God's people, gathered around him and gathered around his son. This is the heavenly, final, eternal church and you see what it looks like. You see it? People from every tribe, language, people, nation.

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It does not say some nations. It does not say most nations, it says all nations, tribes, languages, people. What that tells us is everybody is different. In the heavenly, eternal church everybody is different, but you know what it also says?

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Everybody is the same. Everybody is the same. They are all wearing white robes. Why they are all wearing white robes because they are all saved the same way by the blood

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of Jesus. And that's why they all shout the same thing, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. This is glorious, you realize, glorious.

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And God asks us to join him in bringing this heavenly, eternal church about. God asks us to join him in bringing all nations to his glorious heavenly throne. Can you understand the privilege of that? In the joy, dears, sisters and brothers, Jesus, my Lord, who my love so dearly, and you

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do too, Jesus came, died on a cross. He died on a cross for the sins of the world, and then God raised him from the dead and he ceded now at the right hand of the Father, and he's building his church. He's all nations' church, and he wants you and me to serve in that purpose.

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I hope you're joining, Ma'am pray. Lord God and Heavenly Father, we are so humbled. So humbled that you would send your Son into this world to us so that he might die for our sins and rise for our justification.

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Lord, we are humbled not only that you would save us, but that you call on us to serve you in your plans and purposes, your grandest, eternal plans and purposes to reach all the nations, and to reach all those for whom Jesus died. Father, we stand in awe and wonder that you would grant us such privilege, please enable

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us by the Holy Spirit to serve you in this way and to serve you together, this we are asking Jesus' name, Amen.