OYC 2011: Wellness Reformation

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Oregon Youth for Christ

OYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

Dave Fiedler

It’s OK to Die

Allen Lloyd

Wisdom vs. Rubies, Part 1

Diane Burnett

Lisa Puffer

Health Ministry Q & A

Wisdom vs. Rubies, Part 2

The Ministry of Healing

United Work or the Worst Evil

Father, we begin this encampment here asking your presence, asking your blessing.

Lord, we acknowledge that your wisdom is far above ours.

We freely admit that you have power which we can never approach.

And Lord, we thank you that with those 2 attributes you combine a love that we can never understand.

So Father, we ask that tonight, tomorrow, the next day, throughout this whole time, that we might learn more of you, that we might learn how to represent you to those who know even less.

We ask a blessing, Father, that we might be a blessing to someone else.

Tonight I'd like to share a story with you.

When I was teaching and I had these young teachers coming along, 1 of the things I would often tell them, I'd say, if you think you're teaching and you're not telling a story, You probably aren't.

This is more or less just a personal testimony.

I think it has ramifications for all of you in the audience, so it's not, hopefully, irrelevant.

But it is pretty much my story, the things that I've experienced in the last about 4 years.

Anytime you tell a story, you always have the question of where do you actually get started, you know?

There's really only been 1 perfectly good opening line for a story, but you know Moses used that 1 a long time ago.

The problem is there's always things that lead up, you know, and you always tend to, oh if I just, I should tell a little bit more back here, you know, but we're not going to do that.

We're going to drop most of the details, But suffice it to say that in the summer of 1980, I happened to be living in Colorado at the time and through a variety of circumstances, I came to the conclusion that the Lord would rather have me be in Washington State.

Being younger and probably foolisher than I am now, I decided to hitchhike.

I didn't have any money, I didn't have a car, and everything that I had I put into 14 boxes, all I kept under 40 pounds so that the folks that I left the boxes with could mail them to me, you know, later on.

Well as it worked out, there were some people that really questioned what I was doing and they had their doubts about this whole proposition.

But I assured them that the Lord was pretty smart and they had no experience hitchhiking, whereas I had done quite a bit of hitchhiking.

And I was perfectly capable of realizing that if I stood in 1 location for a day or 2, I probably ought to walk back where I was and stay there.

So I told him, you know, the Lord can tell me what he wants me to do, it's not a problem.

Well, as it turned out, they needed some help.

They asked me to stay with them 1 extra day.

I said, Dave, could you stick around 1 day and help us?

We've got these pears we have to get canned.

So I said, sure, I'll help you with your pears.

And as we were standing there canning these pears outside in the pleasant weather, a gentleman drove up.

He was on his way from Corpus Christi, Texas to Seattle, Washington, which just coincidentally happened to be more or less where I was headed to.

He had to stop in Moab, Utah, Mentone, California, and Santa Barbara, California, and he had business to transact in each of these locations and he was talking to the folks I was helping with their paris and he said, I have a problem.

He said, I've got to be in Seattle by Thursday.

It doesn't take that long to get to Seattle.

But I've got to go here and here and here along the way and I don't have enough time.

I need somebody who can help me drive." Well he had a van, I had 14 boxes and I was gone.

Along the way we stopped in Mentone, California And he knew somebody down there whom I did not.

And we spent the night, I don't remember which night it was, it was kind of a weird trip just to be honest, but yeah, nonetheless it got me there.

We spent the night at the home of a little old lady by the name of Leah Schmidke.

Is there anybody here that would recognize that name by any chance?

I'm still trying to find any information about her.

Schmidke lived there, just Mentone, it's about 6 miles from Loma Linda, something like that.

Well, 1 of the things that I'd done in life is run press, and so that was kind of interesting to me.

That was back in the days when you didn't have personal computers and such things, and so freedom of the press still belonged to those who had a press, and she had a press.

And I was interested, so we talked and spent some time 1 thing and another.

I looked at some of the things she'd printed up.

She had a tendency to print up things dealing with Adventist history, which was another big winner for me.

So I made just a note of this, went on to Seattle and never saw her again.

Ever since I decided that Christianity was worth thought and effort, I've had 2 kind of conflicting interests that have kicked around in my mind.

1 is that I've always primarily been interested in the church in North America.

I've always felt that if we can get it right here, if we can get things going the right direction here, for good or for bad, and it's been both, but for good and bad, North America is still the center of the Adventist universe.

We have the influence, we have the money, we have the ability to change the rest of the world, so I've always been interested, what can we do for North America.

But at the same time, I've always been drawn to what I might call the intensity of overseas work.

I'm particularly fond of advanced frontier missions.

Some of you are probably familiar with them.

I have a niece who's buried away deep in...

Not buried, but what should I say, working away, shall we say, deep in China with Adventist Frontier Missions.

You won't see her name in the publication, though.

And, you know, I know other people who've gone to other places.

Some of you are familiar with David Gates, Gospel Ministries International.

I know a number of people associated with that operation.

Some of you may recognize Jeff Rich, Lehman Ministry News and his work, especially in the former Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union, the countries over there, Eastern Europe, China and other places.

I've always liked history, Edmund's history in particular.

So I don't like history for history's sake.

But history for tomorrow, that makes sense.

So I've always liked that and some of the things that have attracted me, I've always appreciated the sacrifice and dedication of our pioneers.

I've always been intrigued by what I might call the inner battle of competing influences within the church.

Now I put that up there euphemistically, that's to be honest, I'm talking about politics.

Okay, you know, I mean come on, it would be sweet if there were no never politics within the church.

But the church is made up of people who feel deeply about whatever it is they feel deeply about.

And 1 guy feels deeply this way, and 1 guy feels deeply that way, and you've got a deep chasm between.

And so naturally, there's always going to be a competing matter of influence.

Because this guy's trying to steer things the way he thinks is right.

And this guy's trying to steer them the way he thinks is right.

Series

OYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

It’s OK to Die

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Zoom Backlash

39m

Dealing with Success & Failure - Maintaining Reliance on the Giver

46m

Offering Our Firstfruits

44m

A Sheep Among Wolves

52m

Plenary

Evaluating the Final Impressions

51m

Plenary Sessions

Seizing the Moment

1h 56m

Plenaries with Dwayne Lemon

The Prophetic Relevance of the Medical Missionary Work

1h 9m

The Sabbath and Atheism

1h

Jessica Trinh Weekend

I Will Bring the Blind

54m

Feed Them

42m

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Remote Area Medical: Volunteers Mobilizing Healthcare & Conference Summary

47m

Kickstarter Series '15-'16

The Frontal Lobe and Self Control

44m

Sound Doctrine