Missionary Adventures: Serving the Underserved with LAMP
Steve Schave shares his inspiring journey from the business world to becoming a pastor and ultimately leading LAMP Mission, which focuses on sharing Christ with indigenous communities in remote areas. He emphasizes the importance of mentorship and the profound impact that personal loss had on his decision to enter ministry. Throughout the conversation, Steve reflects on the challenges and rewards of church planting and community revitalization, illustrating how entrepreneurial skills can be leveraged to address complex issues in inner-city environments. He recounts powerful stories that highlight the resilience of individuals in marginalized communities, particularly in the face of tragedy. The episode culminates in a call to action for listeners to engage in mission work, emphasizing that true impact comes from building lasting relationships and partnerships within communities.
The podcast explores the profound journey of Steve, who transitioned from a promising career in banking to a life devoted to ministry and service. Keith welcomes Steve with enthusiasm, and their dialogue quickly reveals the depth of their friendship. The conversation begins with a pivotal piece of advice Steve received early in his career: to take blame for team mistakes while generously giving credit for successes. This concept of servant leadership becomes a recurring theme as Steve shares how his mentors, especially his first boss, shaped his understanding of effective leadership grounded in humility and empathy.
The episode takes a poignant turn as Steve recounts the tragic loss of his twin sons, a moment that profoundly impacted his life and faith. This experience challenged him to reconsider his life’s direction, leading him to pastoral care—a calling inspired by the support he received from his pastor during his darkest days. Steve's narrative emphasizes the transformative power of grief and the way it can catalyze one’s purpose. He reflects on how the love and compassion he experienced motivated him to embark on a journey of healing and support for others, demonstrating that personal tragedy can fuel a greater mission of care and community support.
As the discussion unfolds, listeners are treated to insights into Steve's ministry work, particularly his innovative church planting efforts in underserved areas. He shares stories from his time in Perry, Georgia, and Cincinnati, illustrating how he utilized his business acumen to foster community development and engagement. By emphasizing the importance of building relationships, Steve showcases how genuine connections can lead to transformative changes within neighborhoods. The episode also introduces LAMP Mission, where Steve now focuses on reaching remote communities with the gospel. His call for listeners to get involved in mission work underscores the importance of collaboration and the profound impact individuals can have when they come together for a common cause. Ultimately, Steve’s journey is a powerful reminder of how our experiences, both joyful and painful, can lead to a life of purpose, compassion, and service.
Takeaways:
- Steve shares that the best piece of advice he received was to take blame for team mistakes while giving credit to others, emphasizing leadership humility.
- Transitioning from the banking industry to pastoral work was inspired by personal tragedy and the support of his pastor during difficult times.
- Steve emphasizes the importance of mentorship and how both good and bad bosses shaped his leadership style.
- The significance of building long-term relationships in mission work helps overcome community skepticism and fosters trust.
- Steve's approach to church planting involved leveraging entrepreneurial skills to address community needs and promote local growth.
- Through his work with LAMP, he highlights the impact of sharing the gospel in remote, underserved communities.
Links referenced in this episode:
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Well, it's so good to have Steve on the podcast.
Keith:A dear friend.
Steve:Hey, Keith, Great to be with you again.
Steve:It's been a while.
Keith:Has been a while.
Keith:Look good to talking to you.
Steve:Awesome.
Keith:So I love to start out with my favorite question from my guest.
Keith:What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Steve:Oh, my goodness.
Steve:Best piece of advice probably came from my first boss coming out of college.
Steve:And he taught me early on as a leader to take blame for mistakes for your team, but give credit away like it's going out of business and going out of style to everybody around you and just deflect as much as you can, all the good stuff.
Steve:So that was probably the best piece of advice I ever got.
Keith:Oh, I like that.
Keith:That's so cool.
Steve:Glad you asked.
Keith:You know, we never get where we are in life without people in our lives who mean a lot to us, who are either mentors or influences.
Keith:Who are some of those people in your life who serve to be a mentor or an inspiration for you?
Steve:Yeah, so definitely.
Steve:Pastors growing up were always inspiring to me and the, you know, like you said, the care that they take in your everyday life.
Steve:And then, yeah, I just mentioned, like, you know, I had some good college professors, but my first boss out of college, I was working in the banking industry.
Steve:And it's kind of a tough environment.
Steve:You know, it's all about profits and.
Steve:But this man was an absolute gem of a Christian leader.
Steve:He taught me so very much about what it is to be a good Christian leader.
Steve:You know, he never asked anybody to do anything that he wouldn't do himself.
Steve:You knew it was a rough day when you heard him throw out words like dagumit.
Steve:You know, so just a very calm, considerate guy to begin with, and just the love he poured out to his people, and it was just a real encouragement for me.
Steve:So I kind of laugh.
Steve:My kids, you know, they tell me about bad bosses, and, you know, I'm.
Steve:I'm always thinking, you know, I learned a lot from bad bosses, how not to manage.
Steve:So I'm.
Steve:Now I can look back and be grateful, like, oh, I know now that's not the kind of leader I want to be.
Steve:But to see somebody that's very sacrificial, somebody that, you know, really does care about their employees.
Steve:Yeah.
Steve:So, you know, bosses like that, especially my first one coming out of college, was very instrumental for me and my leadership style, for sure.
Keith:So you just talked about a little bit about your background.
Keith:You didn't start out as a pastor.
Keith:You did something else first.
Keith:What inspired you transition from the business world to being a pastor?
Steve:Yeah, absolutely.
Steve:I.
Steve:Growing up, I had absolutely no thought of ever being a pastor.
Steve:I remember when a pastor said something to me about going to the seminary, and I said, hey, I.
Steve:Boardrooms, you know, spreadsheets, talking in front of, you know, shareholders.
Steve:What I.
Steve:Totally fine.
Steve:But me in a pulpit, I never in a million years imagined myself getting up and being in the pulpit.
Steve:But, yeah, just talking about encouragement and pastoral care, that had a big part of it.
Steve:So I was working in the banking industry.
Steve:I was an officer at the bank, and things were going really well.
Steve:And unfortunately, in my wife and our first pregnancy, she went into labor prematurely.
Steve:We had twin sons that were born on July 7th, and the next day, July 8th, they died.
Steve:And so, yeah, I mean, it's just like, everything's going my way, you know, I couldn't.
Steve:I have fancy house, sports cars, suits, banker, you know, all that stuff.
Steve:And then life just comes in and has a way of pulling the rug right out from under you.
Steve:But I was in pieces, man.
Steve:I really was.
Steve:I was in pieces.
Steve:And if it wasn't for my pastor getting me through, I don't know.
Steve:But he did.
Steve:And just to have him at my side, this meant the world to me.
Steve:So it was years later I got asked to.
Steve:I was real involved in my church, Toledo, Ohio, where I was from.
Steve:And then I was asked to be part of this building program.
Steve:Hey, will you come and kind of tell your story about, you know, just like you just asked me, like, talk about your faith walk and, you know, all this stuff.
Steve:And so I told the story of what happened with losing my twins and how much the faith meant to me and my pastor, et cetera, et cetera.
Steve:But it was shortly after giving that little speech when I never thought I'd be a pastor, I started getting stuff in the mail from the seminary.
Steve:And it was my pastor, sure enough.
Steve:He's like, man, after I heard you tell that speech from all those people, he's like, I really think that you've got a gift.
Steve:And so, wow.
Steve:I just said, you know, yeah.
Steve:But I mean, I just.
Steve:I remember thinking, like, for what my pastor did for me, if I could ever do that for somebody else and be there for them the way he was, to help my wife and I pick up the pieces on a shattered life, you know, that would be amazing.
Steve:So that.
Steve:That definitely meant a lot.
Steve:And then it was interesting, too, because 9, 11 just happened.
Steve:And so my wife and I have these really Great business careers.
Steve:Everything's kind of just going our way again.
Steve:And then 911 hit.
Steve:And it was kind of a big eye opener for me, too, like thinking about all the people and all the loss and, you know, all the evil things that went on behind the scenes to make something like that happen.
Steve:And so sure enough, you know, I finally decided after that it was time to at least go visit the seminary.
Steve:And, you know, yeah, I did the campus visit, and next thing you know, it's like I'm signed up and my wife and I are just, you know, we have four kids.
Steve:My son was two weeks old at the time.
Steve:It just made zero sense whatsoever how we'd ever pay the bills, you know, none of it made sense.
Steve:But God has a way of doing that.
Steve:And we managed even.
Steve:Even with the four kids until we managed to.
Steve:To pull it off.
Steve:But that was kind of all the things that led up to me and my wife both given up pretty good business careers to go into ministry.
Steve:And she then, a few years into my seminary work, decided to go into the deacons program because she also was so captured by learning the theology and all the rest.
Steve:And so, yeah, so we both ended up becoming church workers.
Steve:As a matter of fact, we were the first kind of tag team.
Steve:We were the first husband, wife, pastor, deaconess to go out to be church planters.
Steve:So it was kind of a.
Steve:I need experience that way, too.
Keith:Yeah.
Keith:I'm not sure what they put in the water on the recruitment trip, but it like, you don't walk away without signing up.
Keith:We should put those people recruit for the military, because I'm telling you, yeah, for sure.
Steve:It might have something to do with the Holy Spirit too.
Steve:I don't know, but it could be.
Steve:It's like, for sure.
Keith:I remember going to visit my first visit to St.
Keith:Louis, and I'm like, I'm ready to sign up right now.
Keith:I'm still in high school.
Keith:I'm like, wait.
Steve:Yep, sent me off to war.
Steve:That's right.
Keith:So tell us about your ministry career, you guys, how you got into seminary, where have you served and what have you done in ministry.
Steve:Yeah, so, yeah, so I went to.
Steve:My wife and I are from Toledo, so I went to Fort Wayne, which is nearby, and my wife could still kind of commute and had the parents nearby.
Steve:And it was good to have a support system like that.
Steve:But I do remember I was sitting in a Greek greetings class, and so the vicarage supervisor had asked me, have you ever considered church planting?
Steve:Which I didn't really know Much about.
Steve:But he said your background really kind of would be helpful.
Steve:So I went through the mission formation program at Fort Wayne.
Steve:That was the time of the Ablaze movement, if you remember that.
Steve:And so you had the seminaries, the districts, and the Senate all working together to plant churches.
Steve:So I went through that special program.
Steve:I got assigned through that church planting initiative.
Steve:And so they sent me down to the middle of Georgia to be a church planter.
Steve:It's just kind of really interesting choice of locations.
Steve:There was zero presence of Lutheranism.
Steve:Nobody knew what a Lutheran was.
Steve:And it was just a really neat opportunity to kind of start from the ground floor on what Lutheran missions looks like down there.
Steve:So that's my first call.
Steve:It went really well.
Steve:I ended up becoming the president for the ministerial association here.
Steve:I was this Yankee down in the south, but we had started a lot of mercy work down there and got a lot of attention.
Steve:And, you know, I'm glad to say that within just a few years of not knowing what a Lutheran was to pretty much everybody knew who Christ Lutheran Church was in Perry, Georgia, because of all the kind of groundbreaking stuff that we had going on.
Steve:So started a community center, worked with my wife to start a pregnancy resource center.
Steve:You know, so it was just really, really neat to see a church that was growing, thriving.
Steve:They've got a school now, they're on their, like, third building edition.
Steve:So it just keeps.
Steve:Keeps on going.
Steve:But to be there at the ground level was pretty, pretty exciting.
Steve:And then my next call came from inner city Cincinnati.
Steve:And, you know, I knew as a church planner, you know, like, that's your baby.
Steve:It's going to take like a really good story to convince you to walk away from that.
Steve:But I heard of this kind of fledgling older congregation kind of disconnected from their community, had a HUD facility on campus that was about to close.
Steve:They had just closed the school after 100 years.
Steve:The whole neighborhood was kind of in shambles.
Steve:And, you know, it really just felt like that description in Scripture of the flock without a shepherd.
Steve:And it pulled at my heart.
Steve:It really did, as soon as I heard the story.
Steve:And then again, I didn't know anything about church planning.
Steve:I didn't know anything about inner city revitalization work.
Steve:But I just dove in, studied as much as I could.
Steve:There was a university there, Xavier, that kind of had courses on how to do neighborhood renewal and that sort of thing.
Steve:And the ins and outs of, like, I didn't know what TIF dollars were for a HUD facility to get money to, to kind of revamp this thing from going from this bleak institution to looking like a five star hotel.
Steve:And what do you do with this facility that's right there on your campus too, that's falling apart?
Steve:And we had this place across the street called the Devil's Playground.
Steve:It was just a complete nuisance.
Steve:The community just was always complaining about it because it was unlivable conditions.
Steve:Every time a crime happened, they had to shut down the schools.
Steve:You had gangs, drugs, I mean, all the rest of it.
Steve:So I really did my homework on how to be a part of a grassroots effort to kind of revitalize that whole, whole neighborhood.
Steve:And it was fantastic.
Steve:It was just the church kind of was brought back to life and then the whole neighborhood saw a renaissance.
Steve:And again, just to be part of that was amazing experience.
Steve:And then at the same time, I got asked to or I got elected to be one of the vice presidents for the Ohio district.
Steve:So a lot of what I was doing in kind of the missions world, through witness and mercy life together, kind of that, that framework, I got asked to do that more at the district level as well.
Steve:And so I guess that got the attention of the folks at the senate office at the international center, because then I went on to become the director for church planting and the director for urban and inner city mission and kind of went from local to district to national.
Steve:So that was kind of my journey there.
Keith:Having served in the inner city, I know one of the frustrations for me as a pastor was the hurts just seemed so large and you seem so small.
Keith:How do you, using your background and entrepreneurship and business leadership and influence, how did you bring those skills into the problems, the vast problems of inner city congregation?
Steve:Yeah, definitely.
Steve:In terms of entrepreneurship, I mean, just in my own background, I was kind of a tech entrepreneur, right?
Steve:So sorry, this is kind of diverting a little bit, but it kind of ties in.
Steve:So I'm a tech entrepreneur, right?
Steve:I'm this nerdy computer kid, got his first computer when he was in sixth grade.
Steve:I'm learning to program, take that thing apart, right?
Steve:So I'm totally a nerd, okay?
Steve:And then I get my college degree, I go out into the world and to be a tech entrepreneur at the time, you know, we take a lot of things for granted.
Steve:Like we do everything online now, right?
Steve:We do our banking, our college stuff that we do, healthcare, we do looking at sports and like leaderboards, you know, all the stuff that like you take for granted.
Steve:Now when I tried to go out and sell that to business executives, they're like the Internet, that's for nerds.
Steve:That's like weirdos like you that, you know, are doing this stuff, you know, just for computer geeks.
Steve:And I'm like, so I take them through the process, and I'd say, well, wait a second, so you.
Steve:You do, like, for example, furniture repair.
Steve:Okay, so you have this process.
Steve:What do you have to do?
Steve:Well, I got these forms with the insurance, and I gotta get pictures and I gotta mail this, and I gotta talk to the customer.
Steve:I'm like, imagine how much more efficient it would be if everybody goes on to their computers.
Steve:You can see the entire process.
Steve:You can fill out every form.
Steve:You can show, update, picture of everything that's happened.
Steve:How much better would that make your life?
Steve:And they're like, oh, okay, I'm starting to dig this thing, right?
Steve:And I'm like, we'll set you up on the computer and we'll show you how to use your web browser to do all this stuff.
Steve:But anyways, the point being is, like, the things that we take for granted, nobody saw it, right?
Steve:And so when I show up in Perry, Georgia, and, you know, I've got a place that we're located with one place, it's all wealth.
Steve:And on the other side of literally two sides of the street, one side of the street is old money.
Steve:The other side of the street is abject poverty.
Steve:And it's always been that way, right?
Steve:But I'm coming in there and I look around and I think, no, it doesn't have to be this way.
Steve:We can.
Steve:All these resources that we have over here can be used to help other people on the other side, to lift them up out of poverty, to give them hope, you know, so it was seeing something that nobody else had seen for generations.
Steve:You know, I remember my wife and I went to talk to this local trust there in town, and they said, you pastors, you get up in your pulpit and you talk all this talk about loving your neighbors, blah, blah, blah.
Steve:He said, I haven't seen a one of you ever go to the wrong side of the tracks.
Steve:And I said, well, we're new here, sir, and if you just give us a chance, I think we can help to prove you wrong.
Steve:And sure enough, he just.
Steve:He came to our.
Steve:I remember he came to our ribbon cutting.
Steve:He's like, I never in a million years thought that this would happen, you know?
Steve:And I'm telling you, Keith, like, some of the things you never expect, like white and black people sitting together at a table, having a meal, singing a hymn together Was kind of out of the norm at the time.
Steve:Right.
Steve:And so it was.
Steve:It was that kind of ability as an entrepreneur, not just to see what's there.
Steve:It's the idea of what could be if you have a plan and you can actually implement that plan.
Steve:So it's the same thing in the inner city work.
Steve:I came into this neighborhood, you know, had all these issues.
Steve:The church had all these issues.
Steve:But I didn't just kind of mire in that muck of what is.
Steve:I started to look out and say, what could be.
Steve:So.
Steve:And I had started my business career in Cincinnati, which was helpful.
Steve:So I knew foundations, I knew corporations.
Steve:I knew that, you know, hey, you don't do mercy work, but I've got a plan.
Steve:And if you're willing to invest, invest in this, it's going to help everybody, you know, and to have kind of those business skills as well.
Steve:But it was to take that vision, like with the furniture repair guy, and show it to him and not use lingo and jargon, but to help him to see it with his own eyes and then that it can actually be done.
Steve:Yeah.
Steve:So we had the government, we had foundations, we had corporations.
Steve:Everybody was so excited about what could be that we made it happen.
Steve:We made it a reality.
Steve:Like, you wouldn't even recognize the church or the neighborhood from the day that I got there.
Steve:And I'm not saying that was me.
Steve:I'm saying it was using all those skills to bring all those people together and to see a community want to make this happen.
Steve:So, like, in the inner city, again, what you're saying is that it just on the surface is like, this is too big.
Steve:You can't possibly make a difference or put a dent or have any kind of impact.
Steve:But what was so exciting was when you bring all these partners together and they want to make a difference in the world, and you show them kind of a path to get there, all the pieces start to come together.
Steve:And then you see over time, some pretty major changes, and it changes lives.
Steve:And that's kind of the thing, too, is, like, you try not to get too caught up in the big thing.
Steve:You think about one soul at a time, right?
Steve:You're thinking about that one homeless person.
Steve:You're thinking about that one person who's on the street, you know, looking for the next meal.
Steve:So you're thinking about that one soul instead of just thinking about this huge, oh, this is way too big to ever make a difference.
Steve:But, yeah, if you focus on changing lives and bringing the right people together to do it.
Steve:That's where I think you can see those kind of changes happening.
Keith:Yeah, I think you hit on something.
Keith:I think we forget sometimes the value and the benefits of partnership.
Keith:If we're all working at something together, we're much more powerful than one little church trying to save the world by itself, right?
Steve:Yeah, absolutely.
Steve:So we had that little core group of people down in Georgia, Just a handful of people, but by getting the thing rolling, you know, I remember we put on a Friday afternoon lunch, and it was just our little group of people.
Steve:But guess what?
Steve:All these people came out of the woodwork to want to be a part of what we were doing.
Steve:They were so excited about what was happening.
Steve:New members, you know, people with Lutheran backgrounds started to show up, too, because, like, they were really engaged in our outreach efforts, and so they wanted to be a part of that, too.
Steve:So, like, families started to come, and other, you know, people in the community wanted to be a part of it.
Steve:So, yeah, it just kind of snowballs like that when you have a vision for something big.
Keith:So now you've moved on to a new venture in your life.
Keith:Tell us about LAMP Mission.
Keith:What's his mission?
Keith:To share Christ with people in remote areas.
Keith:Tell us a little bit about the program itself and what you do.
Steve:Yeah, so LAMP stands for Lutheran association of Missionaries and Pilots.
Steve:And so while I was working in St.
Steve:Louis at the International center, the director of RSOS came over and said that they were looking for an executive director.
Steve:Do I know anything about lamp?
Steve:And immediately, I was brought back to my childhood because I remember the initial bush pilots who were flying their little red planes into these indigenous communities up north.
Steve:You know, we were just talking about, you know, Canada and Alaska.
Steve:I mean, in the parkas.
Steve:And, you know, it was like these Arctic adventurer kind of guys doing missions.
Steve:I remember having a little tin can where we took our Sunday school collections and had the little lamp playing on the front of it.
Steve:And just all those kind of really fond memories.
Steve:And so I was excited, you know, as soon as she mentioned, I'm like, oh, lamp.
Steve:Yeah, that's my childhood right there.
Steve:I remember we prayed for them every Sunday, and we were always praying for the missionaries that went and did this really amazing work in indigenous communities up north.
Steve:And so, yeah, so it's kind of the same.
Steve:Same thing as leaving our business career behind, because my wife and I watched this movie.
Steve:It was called Grizzlies, and it was about the life of a youth trying to grow up in one of these isolated, remote, dark, cold locations.
Steve:And Indigenous reserves and like, what it would be like.
Steve:And we watched it and it just like hit us like a ton of bricks.
Steve:And my wife looks over at me, we got four kids in St.
Steve:Louis, you know, everything's going good for us.
Steve:And she says, you know, we have to go now, right?
Steve:What, what, what are you talking about?
Steve:You want to just pack up and leave?
Steve:And so, yeah, left everything.
Steve:We know we sold all of our belongings.
Steve:We kind of left everything behind and just kind of like these arctic adventurers.
Steve:We moved up to Edmonton, Alberta, so that I could work with Lamp and to see firsthand the difference that it makes when people are willing to go share the gospel in these very harsh conditions that they live under.
Steve:So, yeah, so that's what Lamp does.
Steve:We send mission teams and our missionaries to go serve in these indigenous communities.
Steve:If you look at kind of population wise, it's unfortunate.
Steve:Like, you know, they have more health care concerns.
Steve:The number one cause of death for their youth is suicide.
Steve:So you see the toll that it takes living in these little isolated indigenous communities, but you also see the impact that the gospel has.
Steve:And when you show up on a mission trip, Keith, they just treat you like royalty.
Steve:They know the, you know, they know the difficulty of coming up to see them and be with them, and so it just means the world to them.
Steve:And then as soon as you go to leave, the kids are asking you like, when are you coming back?
Steve:Because they don't want you to leave.
Steve:So, yeah, I tell pastors that all the time.
Steve:Like, I'm not asking you to come and volunteer.
Steve:I'm giving you an opportunity.
Steve:When's the last time you had a hundred kids banging on the gym door just begging to come in to get some attention and be at vacation Bible school?
Steve:You know, it's just really life changing experience.
Steve:All the volunteers that I've ever talked to have said, you know, they got more out of it than they could ever give just because they see just how much these kids crave love and attention and, and to be able to give that to them and give them some hope.
Steve:You know, we try to catch them at that younger age so that when they become teenagers, they have something to hang on to.
Steve:And they have these lifelong relationships with our volunteers that they know they can turn to when things get tough.
Steve:So, yeah, that's what Lamp does.
Steve:And it's just been a real honor to be a part of that history over 50 years now.
Keith:That's amazing.
Keith:So can you share a story?
Keith:I'm sure you have a bunch of stories Is there one that stands out in your mind that just kind of hits home with you?
Steve:Yeah, yeah, sorry.
Steve:I'll give you two then.
Steve:So just from this past.
Steve:This past year alone, right, So I was asked to kind of do a spiritual retreat in place up in Ontario, tiny village.
Steve:Took me three days to get up there.
Steve:I'm socked in from the weather.
Steve:It's just really harsh climate in the winter and, hey, don't get me wrong, in the summer, please.
Steve:It is absolutely beautiful.
Steve:Come join us.
Steve:It is amazing up there, but there are some times where you go up in the wintertime as a missionary.
Steve:And so I'm going up there to do kind of a spiritual retreat with these elders.
Steve:And it was really harsh conditions.
Steve:It took me three days to get there, and everything kind of switched.
Steve:I was there to bring them some encouragement, some biblical training on my way up there.
Steve:But as I was getting close to time to go, they actually had two teen suicides within just a couple weeks.
Steve:And so, like, my mission was completely changed, you know, as soon as I got there.
Steve:You know, you can imagine the impact that a couple teens suicides would have on a village of 400 people.
Steve:I mean, that just rocks the community, right?
Steve:So I immediately was praying with the head elder, the tribal leader, you know, God, please protect his little ones in this community.
Steve:I'm praying with, you know, the moms of the girls that had taken their lives over the last couple weeks.
Steve:And mom was just visibly shaking in my arms as I'm trying to pray for her and bring her any comfort that I can.
Steve:And so, like, it was just really, you know, a major switch from what I was planning on doing.
Steve:But then as I'm working with the elders and we're having our time together, and I'm doing some biblical training on, you know, how to use your own story to kind of be a witness and that sort of thing.
Steve:And anyways, this one particular elder, though, starts to talk about.
Steve:So what happened was after I talked about story, every single elder wanted someone to translate for them so that they could tell me their story, right?
Steve:And so I'm just hearing these stories, Keith, and it's just so hard.
Steve:Like, people freezing to death, hunting accidents, whole families lost, and house fires up there in these tiny little homes that they have, that they have to use, you know, fireplaces to heat the house and, you know, the suicides of the youth and just story after story, just like, it weighs on you, right?
Steve:It's just weighing heavy on me just hearing these stories here I am grousing and complaining about how hard it was to get up there, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Steve:And it snowed 14 inches overnight and blah, blah, blah.
Steve:And, you know, this elders pouring her heart out to me, telling me about all the tragedies and traumas and, you know, here I am, I'm ashamed now because I'm sitting here complaining, sure, hearing this, right?
Steve:But she said what she would tell her family and friends, though, over and over, whenever tragedy would strike, she would say, but Jesus says, you will have trial and tribulation in this world.
Steve:But take heart, be of good cheer.
Steve:I have overcome the world.
Steve:Boom, right?
Steve:It just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Steve:You know, here's this person going through all these like generational traumas and tragedies and atrocities that have taken place to her people.
Steve:And she's telling me how I should be of good cheer, you know, and here she was.
Steve:That was her whole mantra, was to be of good cheer.
Steve:And it just blew me away that, you know, that was how she lived her life and told others that Jesus has overcome this world and everything that comes with it.
Steve:And so we can always, every single day, be of good cheer.
Steve:So that one was a major one for me this year.
Steve:And then the other one was my family went on a mission trip up to a place called Moose Lake, Manitoba.
Steve:And I just mentioned my wife's a deaconess.
Steve:And so she's helping me with the VBS with the kids and we're working on the crafts.
Steve:And this one little guy gets up as soon as he's done with this craft.
Steve:And.
Steve:And it's how it goes.
Steve:They kind of come and go, right?
Steve:But she kind of, you know, with her deaconess senses, knew that something was going on because this little guy jumps up and he runs out, right?
Steve:And so she follows him out and she goes to the cemetery that's right next to where we're doing the vbs.
Steve:And this little guy was so proud of the craft that he just made, he wanted to hang it on his mom's gravestone.
Steve:So my wife takes a moment, you know, and she says, hey, the little other brother had come over and said, hey, can I pray with you guys for your mom, right?
Steve:So she takes a moment, she's praying for their mom.
Steve:And this is like a seven year old, right, that's already lost his mom.
Steve:And that grave site next door is way too full of loved ones for somebody seven years old, right?
Steve:That's just so much loss for such a young age.
Steve:So I'm thinking about this and one of the things that we would do, too, with the kids is we'd give them.
Steve:One of the crafts was actually a necklace, and it had a little wooden cross on it, and it had colored beads.
Steve:And the idea was to kind of teach them by the color of the beads.
Steve:So you got the white bead that talks about how God created this perfect world.
Steve:You've got the red bead that's telling them about Jesus dying on the cross.
Steve:But then you get to this yellow bead, and the yellow bead is heaven, right?
Steve:And so we're in this last day, and this little guy that ran out to put the, you know, craft on his mom's gray site, he.
Steve:He's there, and I'm thinking about this yellow bead, man.
Steve:And I said, whenever, you know, we leave here, whenever you think about all your lost loved ones, I want you to go back and look at this yellow bead, because it represents heaven.
Steve:What that means is that everyone that died in the faith that's here in this cemetery, Jesus will make them alive again, and we will all be together.
Steve:And I don't care if I'm clear down in Missouri or Michigan or wherever else, there's a day coming soon when we were.
Steve:We will all be surrounded by God's love.
Steve:We will be around the throne.
Steve:We will be around the lamb.
Steve:We will be in heaven, and everyone that we've lost will be made alive again.
Steve:And so whenever you start to have, you know, that big sadness about losing loved ones, I want you to keep thinking about and hold on to this yellow bead and remember what.
Steve:What it means.
Steve:So that was another really powerful moment, was to be able to tell these kids who have gone through so much already in such a young age, what it really means to be in the faith and that there's this hope that is to come.
Keith:Well, that's.
Keith:Those are two powerful stories.
Keith:So if someone's listening to this and they go, hey, this sounds like something I want to do, how do people get involved and maybe do a mission trip with Lamp?
Steve:Absolutely, and we'd love to have you.
Steve:We've got kind of a big initiative Covid.
Steve:Kind of wiped out our big 50th anniversary celebration.
Steve:So we're actually hoping to do, for our 55th anniversary, 55 trips up north.
Steve:And so we are really in need of volunteers.
Steve:So if you're even considering it.
Steve:And those stories, you know, that I just told you kind of weighed on your heart, which I hope they did.
Steve:Please do go to our website@www.lamp ministry.org and there's a tab for mission opportunities and we would love to have you.
Steve:You don't have to worry about having like a full team.
Steve:I mean, we love having sending churches that are constantly sending teams and they recruit, you know, a certain number of people to match the size of the community.
Steve:But if you just want to go solo, we will find you another team to join up with.
Steve:But if you would also like your church to become one of those sending churches that has a team year after year, we would love that too.
Steve:Because what we do.
Steve:Keith, I just kind of talked about these kids and they already have abandoned issues.
Steve:We work in Indigenous reserves where you have to be invited back every year.
Steve:So consistency is really important in our mission.
Steve:Okay, so they already have this inclination that, you know, people come in, they show up for a week, they take their pictures and then they leave and you never see them again.
Steve:That 100% is not lamp.
Steve:We ask any organization that we work with to please at least give us a five year commitment.
Steve:And so what you'll see is like, year one, you kind of go into the community and they're kind of like, I don't know if this is, you know, are they just here for a minute and we'll never see them again?
Steve:But man, by year three, you know, that's when they're just like, you're part of us, right?
Steve:Year five, you know, you are literally part of the fabric of the community.
Steve:And I'll just real quick.
Steve:Sorry, I'll give you an example.
Steve:So I told you how hard it is sometimes to get up.
Steve:So it's really not that bad.
Steve:You get on a plane to Winnipeg, you get on a plane from Winnipeg to Kingfisher Lake.
Steve:It's not that bad, right?
Steve:But it's still, it's expensive and it takes time.
Steve:So imagine a contingency of people from an indigenous reserve come all the way down to Minnesota to one of your volunteers funerals and then you say, wow, I can't believe, you know, you guys went to the lengths that it took to be here in Minnesota.
Steve:Why?
Steve:Why would you do that?
Steve:And they say, because that's what we do for family.
Steve:Right?
Steve:So LAMP volunteers are not volunteers.
Steve:We are not your, you know, TikTok video, Instagram picture, you know, we are, we are it, man.
Steve:We are.
Steve:We are in the communities.
Steve:We are part of the family.
Steve:We're part of the tribe.
Steve:Right?
Steve:So anyways, so if you're considering this opportunity, keep in mind too that that's how LAMP operates.
Steve:So you, you know, will kind of sign up, go through the vetting process because it's important.
Steve:We're, we're all about the safety of the kids, so we take it seriously that you go through a vetting process.
Steve:We do the cross cultural training so you don't hit any landmines, you know, in terms of the difference in cultures.
Steve:And so you want to equip you as, as best as we can.
Steve:But also to consider, like, these poor kids and some of the abandoned issues they already deal with and communities where they already deal with those issues of abandonment too.
Steve:That we do hope that you would consider taking this more of a long term view of, you know, three to five years.
Steve:But we'd love to have you for sure.
Keith:That's awesome.
Keith:So I gotta ask you my favorite question.
Keith:I love to ask all my podcast guests.
Keith:Okay, what do you want your legacy to be?
Steve:Oh, gosh, you know, I guess there'd be the personal one and then there'd be the professional one.
Steve:Because on the personal side, I guess for me, it's kind of like what I have from my parents that I see as their legacy.
Steve:So, like, both my parents grew up on farms.
Steve:Tough as nails.
Steve:You know, I remember watching my dad out in the yard working and, you know, just muscles and veins popping out, you know, just super strong guy.
Steve:But it's just fascinating to me because, like when you, when you think about your, your superheroes, like Superman wasn't just super strong, Keith.
Steve:He had a super brain.
Steve:Right?
Keith:So, Right.
Steve:So my dad was a scientist, he was a physicist, he was an inventor.
Steve:You know, like Corvette windows, the heated windshields for Rolls Royces.
Steve:You know, he.
Steve:He invented really amazing things.
Steve:And my mom, same thing, she combined that with her compassion.
Steve:So she actually was an entrepreneur that started daycare in a home.
Steve:It was called Sunshine Children's home, and it was home for kids with special needs.
Steve:But she started her own daycare for people that needed special needs.
Steve:Daycare.
Steve:And so anyways, both tough as nails, both very entrepreneurial thinkers outside of the box, but filled with that kind of compassion.
Steve: dad, he's had leukemia since: Steve:They gave him three years to live.
Steve:And man, that guy is like a foot shorter now because of all the damage that the leukemia has done to his body.
Steve:He's got walking pneumonia every single day of his life.
Steve:He gets up every morning, has zero complaints, Keith.
Steve:It's just, he's completely driven by love.
Steve:And my mom does the same thing.
Steve:She's got her own health problems.
Steve:They're in their 80s.
Steve:They get up every morning and they give thanks to God and they serve each other and they take care of each other because they're just so driven by their love for one another.
Steve:So my legacy would be that, you know, for my kids, they know their dad is the lovingest father and God willing, grandfather, tough as nails, taught them grit, resilience, and to use all their compassion that they could in entrepreneurial ways to help others.
Steve:Right?
Steve:So that'd be kind of, if I can take that from my parents, pass it down to my kids, that would be amazing.
Steve:On the more ministry side, it was funny when you asked me that because I was thinking what would be kind of fun for me, for my legacy.
Steve:Keith is like 50 to 100 years from now, some, like PhD student at a seminary is looking something up for some study that he's doing.
Steve:He's like, hey, I wonder who the first African American missionary was?
Steve:Or something, something, something that triggers this whole thing.
Steve: pted into synod convention in: Steve:And it was the first time we ever had these domestic missionaries that would go and do that kind of new mission work, multi ethnic, reaching into the big cities that were all growing and the population that was changing so dramatically at that time in the US where our ethnic groups were continuing to blossom, blah, blah, blah.
Steve:Anyways, but the funny thing being like, but it was all this Steve Shave guy, I've never heard of him before in my life.
Steve:Who is this character?
Steve:And then they go and they like, hey, they look into a little bit more and they're like, oh, yeah, he did this community center and church plan, all this inner city stuff.
Steve:And if you go to Madisonville and Cincinnati now, like, I can't believe that ever, you know, was like.
Steve:It was described in that documentary video that the LCMS did.
Steve:And then he did all this church planning stuff and inner city work and he got invited by the Surgeon General himself of the United States of America to represent the LCMS on social enterprise, to help people with addictions and to have enterprising ways for faith based organizations to help people to find work.
Steve:And he had this thing called the Denarius Project and he had all these programs to build resilience for kids in reserves and in the inner city called the Hero Academy, right?
Steve:And so they keep discovering all this stuff.
Steve:I've gone completely into obscurity, right it's 50 years later.
Steve:Nobody has a clue who I ever was.
Steve:And it doesn't matter.
Steve:All that matters is like.
Steve:But there was all this stuff that happened.
Steve:It was like this trail, right?
Steve:And so I think about my.
Steve:My wife's first client at the pregnancy resource center brought their child to my groundbreaking of my church plant.
Steve:I mean, boom, that was like.
Steve:To visually see, like, that changed somebody's life or people that after I left my church plant, I had invited them from our community work we did to come to church, and they never did.
Steve:And now I find out they're all members of the church.
Steve:I'm like, I invited you like a hundred times, and now you're a member of the church.
Steve:So that's.
Steve:That's what I would hope the legacy would be, Keith, is that I get to heaven and like, all these people that I had no clue would have an impact on are there with me in heaven, right?
Steve:And then these.
Steve:These people are looking into this church planning resource that, you know, the first of its kind with video stuff and blah, blah, blah, you know, and they discover and like, hey, this is kind of cool.
Steve:I think there's some stuff in here we could take from.
Steve:You know, I've never heard of this guy before, but I really do like his church planning resource and I like his social enterprise resource and this, you know, resiliency training that he did, but never heard of the guy.
Steve:But, man, I think I could use some of this.
Steve:That would.
Steve:That would be an awesome legacy for me.
Steve:I go down in obscurity, but kind of the things that we've done along the way, there are souls in heaven because of it, and other people found some resources to help them too.
Steve:So that'd be my legacy.
Keith:That's a cool one.
Keith:I love that.
Keith:If we could all say that'd be great.
Keith:It's always about the bread we leave in heaven, not what we leave down here on earth.
Steve:That's right.
Keith:So, Steve, thanks so much for taking the time.
Keith:One more time, where can people find out more about you and about lamp?
Steve:Absolutely.
Steve:You don't want to know about me, but you can always Google Steve Shea.
Steve:But no, please do go to Lamp Ministry, L A M P ministry.org and find out about the great things we're doing to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Keith:Well, thank you, my friend.
Keith:Blessings on what you do.
Keith:And may you continue to go into the hither lands and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with those around us.
Steve:Us.
Steve:All right, thank you, Keith.
Steve:It's always a pleasure always.
