Transcription:

00:09

Emily: Welcome back to the 4:18 Podcast. My name is Emily and today I have the privilege of sitting down with Dr. John Fuder. If you know anything about Doc Fuder, you know that most people call him “Doc” and that he is passionate about equipping students for effective ministry. Doc spent 17 years in California doing urban ministry in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles. Martin Simiyu, our founder, first met Doc over 20 years ago when he started attending Moody Theological Seminary.

00:35

So Doc, to start us off, my first question is, do you remember the first time that you met Martin?

Doc: I certainly do. I was in class at Moody. The class was called the Practice of Ministry. It was a core course for all the new incoming students in the old Moody grad school. I think Martin was sitting in the back row. And during the first break, it was like a three-hour intensive class, a student comes up to me named Josh. Josh went on that initial trip that we did.

01:05

He goes, “Doc, do you know Martin?” And we had done the roll call where I’d probably done the names, Martin Simiyu, but I go, “No, I don’t.” And Josh goes, “Doc, Martin’s got this huge youth group in Nairobi, Kenya. You’ve got to get to know him.” So literally after that class ended, I was like, “Hey, Martin, Josh is saying you’re kind of a thing.” Martin, of course, in his humility, would never acknowledge that. But yeah, that was my very first memory of Martin. And as he began

01:34

to share a little bit about why he had come to Moody, what he had been involved with back home in Kenya, I just was drawn to him. His perspective was–a lot of Moody students come, they really don’t quite know what’s next in their life. They kind of know they need to study the Bible. Martin had such a clear directive on his life that God wanted him to return to Africa and to help,

02:01

you know, raise up his people in a way that they would take real self-sufficiency on their own. And I remember being just deeply impressed by that. I had a lot of students over the years. Martin just seemed to be a cut above in a, in a clear sense of the why he was there. So yeah, that was how it all started. And then I remember telling the faculty, cause we would meet weekly. I was like, guys, you know, God blessed us with a bunch of new students, but y’all got to meet Martin, man.

02:26

This guy is special. So yeah, that’s how it started. I think that would have been the fall of 2001 because the trip that we did was the summer of 2002. Yeah, we didn’t play around because the missions prof, I taught a lot of the urban ministry classes, the missions prof and I co-led a team that next summer with–there probably was about 10 students and really Martin led the whole thing. I mean, basically, you know, I mean, he just took us through in country in ways that were incredibly good.

02:56

And then we knew, we knew, we knew that this was going to be a thing and that it needed to become a thing even after we got back. So a lot of those same students still to this day have tracked at various levels with Martin, obviously, especially Merrell Mcllwain. Yeah, it was really cool. My wife and I had Martin and there was other students from Africa. There was also a new incoming student from Nigeria and another one from the Cameroon. I remember, we had them all over. My kids were much smaller. They were all home still.

03:24

And man, they just told stories. They told stories of Africa. And I remember just sitting at the dining room table with them, thinking, God, you have blessed us profoundly with these men that have come. They all ended up starting various ministries at different levels. Pretty cool. And shortly after that initial class, we would always start the school year with a retreat. All the students and the faculty would go to this little camp kind of thing up in Wisconsin. And that’s where I began to see

03:51

the winsomeness, the warmness of Martin, his smile, his laugh. He was fun to be with, but he could go both. He could be very serious too, in a sense of God’s purpose and calling on his life. I think some students like that come with a pretty clear directive while others are still trying to figure it out. But Martin knew, you know, oh yeah, we had fun together. And we did a lot of ministry together. That was the beauty of that course that I’m telling you about.

04:17

The practice of ministry was such that we would go to the local rescue mission, we would go to the jail, we would go to the juvenile hall, we would be out on the streets. And man, I watched Martin, he just was very comfortable, very capable, engaging. And yet we would always have students over to the house. And so it just became a real community of both and. And I loved watching them interact together and those friendships were very deep, obviously, to this day, still with Matt. Those were good times, those years.

04:45

It wasn’t so much even faculty-student, it was brothers in Christ. Now, I was in my late 30s when I started teaching at Moody, and so these students were in their 20s, I guess. So it’s not like, you know, I was like their grandpa kind of thing. You really began to realize that these were kindred-hearted men after God’s own heart that really wanted their life to have an impact. Doesn’t get much better than that. I mean, you’re surrounding that with obviously study of scripture and stuff, but most of those students were very cut above leaders. 

05:13

Emily: yeah, it’s impressive to me that you perceived Martin as being so comfortable because if I put myself in Martin’s shoes, I’m just thinking that there had to be so much culture shock and unknown for him to come to the States. And I also know that Martin is an extreme introvert. So I’m sure that wasn’t easy. But it’s incredible to hear just the way that he connected with people and again was so comfortable. 

Doc: Yeah, he was I think there was probably more of an adjustment maybe than some of us realized, but he was led into a journey with classmates with American-born students that kind of took him under their wing. And I mean, he came with no money. I think these days he wouldn’t have even gotten into Moody because so much has changed in the landscape of grad school seminaries. You kind of have to show that you have enough, not just to support you here, but to get you back. So much has changed with immigration stuff. So I’m so glad Martin came when he did. And people just loved on him and helped him.

06:12

He came with very little other than a deep calling on his life. He lived very simply, very selflessly, which was really a testimonial, I think, to a lot of his classmates. So, yeah, that was cool. 

Emily: So when you think about the ministry starting, what stands out to you about how it began? 

Doc: So we formed a team of many of the ones I’ve named already. And within weeks of him arriving in school.

06:42

And I think we started talking about the possibility, yeah, possibilities, of a trip to Africa during that fall retreat, which would have been like early September of 2001. I remember getting like really excited like this could really be cool. And the beauty of it is that it wasn’t so much–the other faculty members name is Marv Newell, missions and I was doing urban. It wasn’t so much Marv and I leading it, but really it was Martin leading

07:11

to really give some thought to planning the whole thing. So there was a lot of anticipation before we landed in country. It would have been probably June of 02, I guess. I think it was a three-week trip. Already the roles that ones would have and the preparation, I remember it was cool. He had everybody working on like, there was a whole drama thing that some of the students were gonna do and different ones that were gonna teach or preach different things and prepare some things for young people, all that kind of stuff…

07:41

…all took shape before we even got there. But I remember landing in-country, we stayed in a guest house in Nairobi. And this is where Merrell and I were the older guys in the group, and Marv and the younger ones, and we’re all packed, we were sleeping in bunk beds and stuff. And man, the guys were snoring. And I just remember thinking, man, this is gonna be a long few weeks. But then Martin took us to his church, Nairobi Pentecostal Church. It was a big boy church.

08:11

Thousands of people. And that was his youth group, you know, was in there and meeting all these kids. And it was stunning to me. And there were several other churches like that in Nairobi that were so much wanting to know more about the Lord. And I think Martin’s heart was to get them out of the seat, so to speak, into the streets, you know. But I think what endeared me again, very quickly to him, is the large, large, impoverished area called Kibera,

08:39

which is right on the edge of Nairobi, with roughly a million people there, man. There we went right into that. That changes your life. I had been exposed to some of that stuff, but a lot of the students had not. And you’re wandering around through places like that and the sights and the smells and the sounds and the vastness of it, that had profound impact on our team.

09:00

The delight of Martin was just exposing the students to that. And then the connections that he had, I thought, he’s got some people. This is no Lone Ranger thing. He had a capacity to draw people together, bring people together. So that was one of the first things that we did when we got there. And then he began to take us, I’m not going to remember, different sites in the surrounding area, like schools and things. And your heart just would break for these precious kids in their old uniforms. And they would all be prepared. And they would sing. 

09:29

I remember from the Lion King, they sang some song for us. It was just the sweetest little thing you’ve ever seen, you know. And he just was wired into these, wanting us to see different ways that his people, so to speak, were either thriving or not thriving or so desperately needed the Gospel to really take root deeply in their life. And so every day there were different exposure experiences. And I’ll always remember the privilege… He goes, “Doc, I want you to…” There was a couple Sundays that we were there,

09:58

“And I want you to preach on God’s heart for the poor in my church.” And I was like, “Martin, like you ought to be…” He goes, “No, they need to hear from you,” you know. So that was a profound privilege to stand in front of just… I don’t remember the sheer number, but I thought it was a huge gathering of people. And some of the things we had just seen that the scriptures call out the body of Christ to love the poor, the orphan, the stranger, and the widow.

10:27

And Martin’s, the way he would even introduce us, the way he would be in spaces where in church or out of church, he was able to articulate so beautifully the why that we were there, that it’s like Africans for Africa, that it was time not just outside in efforts of other organizations, but that rather it was time for the people themselves to take ownership and responsibility. And then I did see too,

10:55

how much he had a heart for the villages. Because we would do a little bit in Nairobi, but part of these would be day trips. And that’s where you saw the real poverty, too. It’s one thing to see some of this in the big city, but there was resources to care for them. And I began to see in Martin that his burden was in some of these little villages where you just saw, there is so little here for people, and including water, oftentimes, and they would walk forever to get water for their family. So I think it was a both and that

11:24

we saw and potentially some of the resources coming from some of these large Nairobi churches, but the need ultimately for the people in the villages themselves to become self-sustaining with you know, chickens, a cow, whatever, all the things, grow tomatoes, whatever. And I watched Martin have from the very beginning, a strong sense of both of that. It wasn’t just hey, they need the Bible, they need to become Christians. I mean, obviously we all do, but there was a wholism in Martin’s life…

11:51

of a both and that in order for them to really be strong in their faith and for their family and for their community, they have to take strides to be able to provide for their needs and not be dependent on outside help. And I remember the missions proph and I, we’re like, wow, Martin, he gets it, man. The students I think really saw that too early on that it wasn’t just about a bunch of Americans saying, oh, man, we went to Africa and we feel so good about ourselves. You know, we…

12:18

told them about Jesus and we hugged some kids. It was so much more than that. And that really, I think was before it was Possibilities Africa, was already in his heart–I think he was laying the groundwork for it. So that was very evident. 

Emily: Circling back to what you mentioned earlier, do you remember what you preached on when Martin asked you to preach on God’s heart for the poor? 

Doc: Yeah, so in Matthew 9… 

12:43

it’s those verses where Jesus says, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men. I think it’s Matthew 9, verse 9. And then the question you would ask after that is where does Jesus go with the disciples? And remember verses 10, 11, 12, he’s hanging out with the tax-gatherers and the sinners. And they’re like, what’s Jesus doing with those kind of, you know, why is this teacher hanging out with, you know, people that are a mess and Jesus responds with this,

13:10

“It’s not people that are well that need a doctor. It’s the sick. I came for those that are hurting.” And then the hinge verse is, verse 13, where Jesus has gone and learned what it means. I desire compassion. So the verses that follow verses 14 through about verses 32, I think, or something, if you look at that passage, Jesus with the disciples shows them, okay,

13:37

to follow me, I’m going to lead you into a lifestyle where ultimately you’re gonna give your life away. And so the five images that you see there are the dead, the dumb, the demonized, the bleeding, and the blind. So that’s Jairus’ daughter who had died, Jesus raised her. The woman with the issue of blood. There’s guys that were demonized and dumb taken around. So then they come up for air. The disciples, I think, are just way out of their depth at this point.

14:03

And then it’s the verses that we often reference where Jesus, seeing the multitudes, he felt compassion because they were sheep without a shepherd, helpless and harassed. Then he comes up and says, guys, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And the big idea there then is I just showed you the harvest. It’s, you know, dead, dumb, demonized, blameless. It’s the poor. It’s people that just are in desperate straits. And then his big idea, pray!

14:31

Pray to the Lord of the harvest for more workers. And then I think the point is, and you’re looking at a group of hundreds, I should be careful not to exaggerate, but I think that church had like a couple thousand or more people, it was a large group. And the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And part of why the workers are few is we don’t want to enter into that level of need. So we had just walked through Kibera, which to me was arguably one of the largest impoverished, under-resourced

15:00

communities I’d ever seen. And it was literally just a few miles from the church, you know. So the point with that is that God has a start in prayer. And as we do that, we become the answer to our own prayer. We become to see through his eyes a bit more. And so yeah, that was the passage. God had used it in my life, still uses it in my own life. And I think people really heard it. I was trying to bring it into…

15:28

a space where we had just wandered through places where there were many, many people in great need. That same criteria that Jesus had said plays out right around you guys, you know, and the idea that God says go and learn, there’s a sense of He asks us to learn that and the word compassion means to suffer with. It’s a very, very deep give your life away kind of thing, you know. Yeah, that was the passage that we shared out of. It’s an honor to…

15:56

to be in a place where you just sense God tugging on hearts–our own students, those that were there. And Martin lived that well. Over these years, his travels on his own at great sacrifice and at times risk, you know, and he’s paid the price. He, to me, truly has authenticated that in ways that are just, you know, God one day, “Well done.” As a single man, I mean, really, it’s just the cost of his calling is real. 

16:26

Emily: So what specifically stands out in your memory about being in the slum and walking through that area? 

Doc: Yeah. So there were there… There’s these little trails that go through it. It’s kind of a hilly little valleys. There’s one train track that runs through it. And I think it’s one of the few rail lines that goes across Kenya from the sea. That was kind of surreal. 

16:56

And then there were just tons of kids playing on the railroad track. I think one of the immediate takeaways is there were so many kids in there that were everywhere and they just flock to you and they want you to hold them and we’re looking around and you know, can we do this, you know, kind of thing and they just jump on you. I still remember all the kids. The smells just attack you because human waste just running in open little streams kind of thing along…

17:25

these little shanties, basically, the little tin roof kind of thing with maybe some sort of cobbled together pieces of wood or an old tire on top to hold the roof on or many of them just wide open. Some of them were like out of mud kind of stuff, made and shaped and tons of children, tons of these skinny little dogs, man, scrawny. And you just think of the disease that’s in there, the waste that’s flowing.

17:54

But also not meaning to paint it all gloomy, doomy. There were many, many small little churches in there and a school or several, I think, just very small. It’s a vast area. You can walk and walk and walk. And the warmth of people to welcome us, “You are welcome,” for those that spoke English to us as Americans, “You are welcome.” I’m like, wow, this is incredible. And everybody wanted to give you food, of course, and then the reality is we all.. 

18:21

We probably, most all of us in that trip got sick in some way from probably eating food that we just, our bodies weren’t used to it. So yeah, you were bombarded initially by the smells, by the number of kids running to you, waste that’s just flowing freely. And people just packed into these tiny little, like I’m sitting in one of my kid’s old bedroom downstairs flipped into a, like a study. It’s just a little 10 by 10 space. And that would have been an entire home for somebody, you know, 

18:49

with multiple children and these little hot plate kind of things for stoves. There was electricity, these lines that were just kind of dangling all over the place, and many did not have it though, or they would cut into it maybe, you know, just to draw power from it. But yeah, then there were, you could sense there were people that knew Christ in there too, that were already believers. And it was amazing, you know, it breaks some of your mindsets about all these poor people, they all need Jesus in many ways, what they really needed

19:17

was people to help them to provide for income to be self-sustaining, because many had already heard the Gospel, so to speak, because that is such a well-known area of need that everybody who ever comes on a mission trip goes to Kibera if you’re in Nairobi. So they’re very used to Americans wandering through, but what really I think often does not happen is ways to get people, in a sense, out of that environment,

19:44

and into a lifestyle that would sustain them more than depending on handouts. Yeah, and you really don’t even have words after a while to even debrief that because you could see kind of light bulb moments in the student sides about what God was doing in them. But the kids would just make you laugh and smile because they just, it was home and they knew nothing else. Oh, and I remember…

20:06

This is crazy. A lot of them were wearing shirts of, you know, back here in the States when they print all these shirts and stuff for sports teams like NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball. And if there’s extras, guess where they go? They all get shipped to, you know, Africa, whenever. Some of these kids are wearing all these shirts. I remember there was all this Michael Jordan stuff in Chicago. That was a thing back in the day when Michael played, you know, we used to be good. And you’d have these little MJ shirts of these little kids, you know, Michael Jordan.

20:34

And the students were just like, check this out, you know, or famous, you know, rock and roll groups or musicians, whatever, that were all known, and they’re all wearing their stuff. And so they’re like, wow, good old American materialism at work here, you know, we just ship our stuff all over the place. I guess, and what you hear was it was both need, but it was also hope. And there were those that did have joy in the midst of such, such, I don’t know if I want to say tragic. It is, but yet they were,,,

21:03

They were carving out life in there, where they weren’t all just sitting there absolutely in a mess, you know. And there were small little businesses, too, that were starting up. And Martin would show us some of the things that people were doing to provide income for their lives. That was pretty cool. And there were some pretty cool things that were in there and some other ministries, of course. So Martin had a capacity to network that very well. And as we wandered around, “I want you to meet so and so.”

21:31

“Look at what these guys are doing,” and we’d come inside and then they’d share about ways that they’re reaching into the community. So it was a lot of both seeing need but also seeing hope that people are responding and that there are many that know the Lord and that there are several other churches in there doing stuff.

21:48

Emily: There were so many good nuggets today from our time with Dr. Fuder. You are fortunate because we will have more to share from him soon. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend so we can grow this podcast and share this good news. Thank you for being here! We appreciate your partnership in prayer and in giving. If you’re interested in partnering financially, be sure to head to usa.possibilitiesafrica.org and hit the donate button. Thank you so much for being here. God bless you!