Unknown Nations Podcast

This is the Unknown Nations Podcast, where we'll be sharing about reaching the nation where Jesus is unknown.

Greg Kelley:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Unknown Nations Podcast. My name is Greg Kelley, and we have the amazing honor of serving God with this organization, where we focus on zero-access, barrier-ridden, spiritually antagonistic, spoken-word-reliant people groups. These are the most unreached places in the world, and the most exciting thing for us at Unknown Nations is that we see the church being birthed in the most impossible places.

And I am certainly not in our studio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You hear a lot of background noise going on, and that is because I am on the streets of Istanbul, one of the most famous cities in the world. And of course, we are in the country of Turkey, but I'm not here by myself. I am with our director of international ministries, Mr. Mike Grandy. So, Mike, it's awesome to have you with me here, buddy, on the Unknown Nations Podcast.

Mike Grandy: 

Yeah, thanks for having me. This is quite, quite the privilege to be able to travel the world with you and to be here in an ancient city right now, Istanbul. It's over 2,500 years old—pretty amazing.

Greg Kelley: 

Yeah, it really has been an amazing experience. Mike and I were in Bangladesh a week ago, and then we're with some of our partners here in Turkey. And there's a lot of reasons why we're here in Turkey, but I wanted to give you a little bit of background so you can really appreciate what this country is all about, because this place is super unique.

I mean, you're talking about a large country. Mike, we're talking about a country that, if you were to think geographically, would be the equivalent of from Chicago to Denver. That would be about the length from east to west and just a little bit, um, larger than the state of Texas. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty large country. But what's really unique about it is that it's very strategically located. So, Mike, just help people have a little bit of understanding why we say Turkey is so strategically located from a geographical perspective.

Mike Grandy: 

Yeah, geographically, it's an incredibly strategic place. It's right in the middle there of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. And you have the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean to the south. And it's strategically located because there are so many cultures and people groups that have actually migrated here to Turkey.

Greg Kelley: 

Yeah. And so we have been told, actually, that there's more refugees in Turkey than any country in the world. So, I mean, when you think about it from that perspective, that makes it strategic alone. But then let's talk about some of the border countries. Cause if you're on the far western edge of Turkey, you're actually getting access right into Europe. And so Turkey kind of goes right into Europe. So that makes it super strategic. And then if you're on the— which is where we're near in Istanbul— Istanbul is literally on the far western end of Turkey.

But then when you go way over to the eastern end, these are some of the neighbors. These are the countries that touch Turkey. You're talking about Syria, you're talking about Iraq, you're talking about Azerbaijan, and yes, you're talking about the country of Iran. So these are the neighbors to Turkey. Now, those countries that I just listed are some of the most unreached areas in the world, and they all have access to Turkey. Now, from a refugee standpoint, there's 300,000 Afghans that are here in Turkey. There's over 150,000 Iranians that are here in Turkey, so you don't have to go anywhere if you want to reach the nations that are literally almost 0 percent Christian. So that makes it super strategic.

What about that, Mike? I know that we've kind of interacted with a number of people, but when you think about, you know, we have a love for all these countries I just mentioned, but Iran is kind of unique, and we have met a number of Iranians while we've been here. What's kind of struck you about that? Because I know I've never been to Iran. I don't think you've ever been to Iran, but what has kind of jumped out at you when you think about just Iran specifically?

Mike Grandy: 

Yeah, I think of, there's a people that they're under really a tyrannical government. They're stuck under an oppressive Islamic government, and the ordinary people do not like it. They're, they're, they're not happy under it, um, they're oppressed under it, and they're, they're looking for freedom, and the church itself in Iran is under just incredible persecution. When they—it's illegal to convert. We found out, um, from some friends of ours that we were able to meet, this week here, that if you baptize somebody, the punishment for that is 50 years in prison, up to death. That's just for baptizing somebody, for converting.

And so we're working with people who've baptized hundreds of people, and they've multiplied themselves into different pastors, and the gospel is spreading. It's alive in Iran. But what happens there is when they begin to let their faith be known, they can't hide it for very long, and their lives become endangered. And so what we found here in Turkey is a large population of Iranians who have left the oppression, and they've been able to get into Turkey because Turkey is an easy country to get into.

They allow anybody—just about anybody—to get in with a 90-day visa, but they've also allowed them to come in as refugees. But maybe, Greg, if you want to talk about some of those restrictions, because they come here, which is great. It's great to be able to come here, but then they're kind of stuck. It's almost like they're not necessarily in a prison, but they don't have a whole lot of hope for a future.

Greg Kelley: 

Yeah, Mike's right about that. It really breaks your heart to think about the reason why so many of these people, and I'm sure that's very similar with the Afghans as well. I mean, they're running from the Taliban, their life is in danger. They leave everything behind. I mean, it's such a sad story. You hear stories of people who had businesses, they had property, they had family, but just because they said yes to Jesus, that literally required them to leave. And so they just are seeking refuge.

What defines someone and makes them the difference between someone being displaced and someone—we call them IDP camps, internally displaced people—and a refugee, is that the only difference is that the person who's the refugee had to leave their country. And they say every two and a half seconds, someone is newly displaced in the world because of war, violence, or persecution. And again, in this country that has more of those people in that status than anywhere in the world. But like what Mike said, they can stay here. They can come in 90 days, uh, no problem, but for most of them, going back is almost a death sentence. And so this idea of if they do get forced to go back, and when they're here, they have to check in with the Turkish government about every 12 months, uh, just to kind of—they want to keep tabs on them and that kind of thing. 

Are they going to allow me to stay? Are they going to send me back? Will they allow me to stay? Are they going to send me back? Because they have no status here. So it's difficult to get a job. We've heard stories of Iranians whose employers, they, they take advantage of them and that they know they're in a vulnerable state as a refugee without status. And so, okay, yeah, you can come in my company, my business, and serve, be a waiter or a waitress. They may pay them, they may not. We heard stories of, they're being raids.

The Turkish police will identify places where there's, uh, refugees, and they kind of have, it's almost like a quota where they have a certain number they're going to find and send them back. They don't care about their, their, their situation where their life will be endangered. If they go back, they're just, they're just, they just push them back into the country. And so these people are literally playing hide and seek. Uh, it's really, it's really a difficult life, but I think for that reason, some of the things that Mike and I are talking about.

But Mike, one of the other things I want to just kind of touch on: Istanbul is a historical city, and it's so many places around here, I mean, we, we visited, museums and so forth that are talking about, you know, 1500s, 1400s, 5th century, 6th century. We just don't have an appreciation for history because our country's so young in comparison. But, when you think about Turkey, you can't go past the fact that that John speaks of it. Paul speaks about it. Every reference in the Bible to Asia Minor is talking about modern-day Turkey. And there's all kinds of stories that we're going to get into a little bit, but I want Mike to share a couple of cool things about what John saw.

So this is John. John is the one in the book of Revelation. He sees the crowd. This is what drives us, one of our motivating verses at Unknown Nations, when John sees a crowd that is too numerous to count of every tribe, every tongue, every nation is there worshiping the Lord. We know all the nations will be reached. And yet there's still thousands that remain 0.00%. But John also made a reference to the seven churches, and they are all located literally within a stone's throw of where we've been traveling the last few days. So what, what did we see, Mike, as it relates to that?

Mike Grandy: 

Yeah, it's, it's amazing to be in such a historical place. And so we were actually able to visit some of these historical cities, and you're walking through, and it's almost, it's almost like hard to appreciate. There's so many artifacts, you know, there's, there's columns, marble columns that are just everywhere and tipped over and marble blocks and intricate, it's, you know, designs from, you know, the time 100 AD and earlier, and it's so hard to appreciate because it's like, you're like sitting down on—almost like you're sitting down on a bench, and it's an ancient column that just happens to be sitting there. But one of the cities we were able to visit was Hierapolis.

And we also were able to visit Laodicea, and we were able to see, uh, the Colosseum. And one of the things that's really interesting is when you read Revelation, chapter 3, verses 15 to 16, I'll just read it real quick to put it in context. So, John wrote this from the island of Patmos, and this is one of the letters to one of the churches, and this is the church to Laodicea. It says, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth."

And so, when we read that, we think of the context, yeah, we don't want to be hot, we don't want to be lukewarm, we want to be hot or cold. But when you sit in these cities, you go to Hierapolis and there's hot springs, and it's this water that's always 102 degrees, and it's warm, and there's other spots where it's even hotter, and then you go to Colossae where it's this fresh, cold, uh, ice spring water coming from the mountains.

Well, Hierapolis, or Laodicea, which sits right in the middle of these two cities, is who this letter was written to. And so, if they were trying to get water from Hierapolis, the hot water by the time it got to them would be lukewarm. But if they were trying to get it from Colossae to get this ice-cold water, by the time it arrived to them, it would be lukewarm. So you get this, this physical representation of the spiritual, and to see that firsthand in this ancient city just brought that whole verse right to life. It was, it was quite amazing.

And we got to go to one of Greg's favorite places, which was really, really amazing to see, was Ephesus. So, Greg, I'm going to let you tell that story since I know, uh, it's near and dear to your heart.

Greg Kelley: 

Yeah, that was super cool. And, the idea, you don't know where you're expect. I, I couldn't get over, Mike, the size of it. They said Ephesus at that time was the third most populated city in the world, behind Alexandria, which is in Egypt, today on the ocean, Rome, and then Ephesus. And they said over a million people lived there. And I mean, it's just amazing because you're kind of walking. It's almost like you're in a valley, and the city went up on both, which today is just a bunch of shrubs and trees up there. That most of it hasn't been excavated, hasn't been touched. They say the best way to preserve it is just not to touch it, basically. Which is kind of interesting, but they've certainly excavated a lot of it.

And one of the places that Mike's referring to that's really impacted us is the Hall of Tyranus. That's the account in Acts chapter 19, where Paul so famously stayed for two years, and as a result of it, yes, all of Asia Minor, which is where we're at right now, was reached with the gospel. And we saw the Hall of Tyranus. It was very, very powerful.

But hopefully, friend, you've been encouraged by what Mike and I are talking about. And I just want to put Turkey on your radar. The one thing that Mike and I haven't even touched on is that there's 62 million Turks, which is one of the largest Islamic unreached people groups in the world, 0.02 percent Christian, 62 million people. And so we need to be praying for the Turks. They are a nation that Jesus died for. This country is so strategic.

We hope that you've really taken that away from today's episode. They are a gateway people. As we reach them, basically what it means is they have unique influence culturally or geographically. And once Turkey comes to know Jesus, think of the dominoes falling in every direction: North, South, East, West. So, friend, be encouraged. God is moving. Mike, thanks for being with us on this episode of the Unknown Nations podcast.

Mike Grandy: 

Yeah. Thanks, Greg. It's been a privilege.

Greg Kelley: 

Yeah. So, friend, we want you to go to the website, unknownnations.com. You can learn more about it. Go to, uh, wherever you're getting this podcast from, please give us a favorable rating, share it with friends and family. That would be a blessing to us as well.

We need to get this information out there so people are equipped and educated with what God is doing in the nations that are yet to get their first gospel witness. Well, that does it for this episode. My name is Greg Kelley, was here with my good friend and coworker, Mike Grandy, and we will be with you again next week on another episode of the Unknown Nations Podcast.