No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
A Realistic Look at Life on the Mission Field | Interview with Kilby
In this episode, Brody sits down with his oldest daughter, Kilby, who, along with her husband Greg and baby girl, has been serving as missionaries in East Africa. They discuss their ministry work, focusing on the importance of sharing the Gospel in Uganda, where humanitarian aid often overshadows the spiritual needs of the people. Kilby shares powerful stories from her time working in prisons, her passion for ministry, and how her upbringing in Andrews, NC and involvement with SWO shaped her journey. They also dive into their work in South Sudan, where the need for the Gospel is immense. Brody is encouraged by Kilby's strong faith, and together, they reflect on the calling God has placed on their lives. Kilby shares how listeners can support them through prayer as they continue their mission in East Africa.
Kilby and Greg’s Ministry Website
Kilby and Greg’s Email - Greghelmsis@gmail.com
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In this episode of no Sanity Required, I had probably the greatest privilege a dad could ever have and I sat down with I didn't even sit down Kilby and I, my oldest daughter, who serves in East Africa where they're doing gospel work, and her and her husband and daughter they've been with us for a couple months Got to come in for Thanksgiving. We got to see them Thanksgiving week and then spend Christmas with him, and the month of January has just been awesome having him. And so Kilby and I just went for a walk, stopped propped up on the fence and talked about the work they're doing there, so wanted it to have a very casual feel and wanted to bring you into that. I did. I started recording and then realized at some point it had stopped about five minutes in. So we actually we picked the conversation up about five minutes in, but it'll be fine and you're going to hear dogs in the background, trucks and cars driving by. One. At one point we have a neighbor that walks up and starts talking, and so it was. It was very casual, we were outside on a beautiful day and so just wanted her to share the work they're doing, a little bit about what they're doing and hope that you'll be encouraged by that.
Speaker 1:I know it's an encouragement to me every time I talk to Kilby. She's a woman of incredible faith and action, with that faith, with that faith, and I will say, from the time Kilby was the smallest child, she wanted to be a missionary and I remember oftentimes I've had people ask me what's it like, or how people might say, what's it like having one of your kids serve so far away, because they're really far away, even if you, once you fly into their country, you're still a 10 hour drive from their house. And so what I tell people is it's the greatest joy to know that my children are walking with Jesus and there's no greater joy than that, and so I'm thankful. And so um makes it. It doesn't make it easy, it's very difficult, putting them on an airplane um on Sunday and Sunday and saying goodbye for who knows how long. It's hard, but Jackie Leggett said in her book she wrote a book.
Speaker 1:Jackie Leggett is a missionary widow and she wrote a book called we Died Before we Came here. The idea is that the premise of that is that when you submit and surrender your life to missions, there are certain things that you embrace and accept on the front end and for us. I gave Kilby to the Lord as a child and at a young age she expressed a desire and a calling to go into the foreign mission field and so we embraced, accepted and cultivated that in her heart from an early age. And it doesn't accepted and cultivated that in her heart from an early age. And it doesn't make it easy now, but it sure is rewarding to see her follow God's call on her life. So I think you'll be encouraged and enriched by this conversation.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:Uganda is one of the larger countries in the world for humanitarian work.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes, uganda is one of the largest countries in the world for humanitarian work and there's definitely a need. You see a lot of poverty and starvation and a lot of brokenness, but a lot of times people bring those things without the gospel, and so all they're doing is meeting these people's earthly comforts and needs and not offering any help or peace or comfort to their souls, which is so much more important. We know that as believers from a biblical worldview, we know that the soul, of course, is eternal, and so, greg and I, our goal is always that the ministry that we do be gospel driven. I, in my humanity, a lot of times feel a need to like add on to that, when people ask what we do and we say, oh, we disciple, or oh, we teach the bible, um, I sometimes want to say, and we sometimes help feed people, because I know that that's what people want to hear, but that's that's ultimately not the the greatest need for these people.
Speaker 1:So there was a guy, hold that thought there was a guy I was talking to. He's a local fella and he's from a church in this area. This is probably two years ago and he said we're now well, I had gotten a call from a mutual friend saying, hey, our church is looking to get involved in support, uh, for missionaries in East Africa. I guess they had had a partnership and it kind of fallen through. And I start talking to this guy on y'all's behalf and then before I pass along y'all's info, and then all he's wanting to talk about is how many wells they drilled. And then he's like so what kind of work like that are they doing? And I realized pretty quick in the conversation it wasn't going to be what they're looking. They wanted something where they can take folks and go over there and take short term trips with teams, send home videos, put it on Instagram and that's. That's okay, I'm not criticizing.
Speaker 3:Uganda is a pretty big country. Like I said, it takes it takes about 10 or 11 hours to drive to where we are from the capital. And that is not even you know the furthest point. And it's funny because I'll get messages all the time from people saying like, oh hey, we heard about this orphanage in this place. Could you go and check it out and make sure that it's good? And I'll look it up. And it'll be like a 16-hour drive from where we are or something like that.
Speaker 1:On dirt roads. Yes, on dirt roads.
Speaker 3:And I never even heard of the village and it's just funny. But I know that people don't have context and I don't have context for a lot of it. So it makes sense but it is. It's funny to me when I get those messages. But yeah, we do a lot of a lot of ministry in the prisons. We're very thankful for that because Greg, my husband, he started working in the prison maybe the men's prison, maybe two years ago and as soon as he started that I felt really heavy on my heart to start going to the women's prison. But the door just was not opening. And, um, two Octobers ago a German ministry there uh got a foot in the door at the at the prison and they had heard I wanted to go. So they invited me and I've been able to go since then and I love it so much.
Speaker 1:That's so cool.
Speaker 3:There are about 1,000 men in the prison and about 60 women, so a lot fewer women.
Speaker 1:Is it like a different building? Is there?
Speaker 3:a wall? How are they separated? So it's like a lot of things in Uganda are compounds, so it'll be like a building and then a fence around it or a gate around it, and I think we live in a compound and I think when people hear that, they think like, oh, it's very separated, or maybe they have like a barracks type of thing in mind. But it's so many people and so many buildings are in compounds in Uganda just for security, and so the prison is there's a pretty big side for the men, because there's obviously a lot more, and then the only thing that separates them is a fence like this Like we're standing in front of, like a little just a small little, yeah, chain link fence and it separates the men and the women and then the women have like one room that's for them to sleep in and then pretty much everything else they do outside.
Speaker 3:So they cook, eat outside, they do any sort of chores outside, it's all outdoors.
Speaker 1:And those women. They have to make their own food right.
Speaker 3:Yes, so they're provided with the staple. From what I understand, they're provided with the staple food, so it's like some flour that you mix with boiling water and then beans every day, but then it's their job to prepare it and usually they're on rotation with that. And then something that the Lord has been really kind to let us start was kind of a food supplement program for pregnant and nursing women in the prison, and so once a week the wellness officer there will send me a message of food that they could use for the women, and we'll buy sometimes fish, greens like they have kind of like African version of kale and spinach and things like that and potatoes and things and bring it to the women, and so then at least the pregnant women and nursing women get a little bit extra food while we're there.
Speaker 1:The dog dog, by the way, barking in the background is roxy, who is your dog?
Speaker 3:yes, how old were you when you bought her?
Speaker 1:I think I was 12 she's to be a big old pyrenees. She's really old, she's like 13 years.
Speaker 3:She's, yeah, she's 13 years old, like right now turning 13 um, and then we also do a children's program, which is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 3:Uh, schools in uganda are wild because they require a lot more than schools in america um require a lot more like academically yes, so even from like maybe like fourth grade, because the grading system is different there, but I think the equivalent fourth grade you are in school all day, every day, until like 6 pm, and then you also go to school on sun, on saturdays, in the morning time. So the only time that we have like as a slot to do children's ministry sunday uh, saturday afternoon. But we're very grateful for that and we take it. We take the opportunity, we use it.
Speaker 1:We're very grateful so saturdays they get out of school earlier in the day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they get out at like lunchtime and then y'all do that after yeah, so usually we do it around 2. And I think it's time to walk home and get out of their uniform. So Uganda is, from my understanding, this is why they do it, but it's colonized by the British, so the school system is more British than American. So everybody has uniforms. It's primary and secondary school instead of elementary, middle and high school.
Speaker 1:so, yeah, they get home, change out of their uniform, eat a meal and then go and not ever like there's no free public education. So kids, there are a lot of kids that don't get educated. There are Not a lot, but that's not uncommon. So in the village there are. But I'll say in Arora people always.
Speaker 3:A lot of times they make away on everything, but you can definitely tell like when it's around the start of the new school semester. So there's three terms in Uganda instead of two semesters. It's three terms with three shorter holidays, and you can tell like when a new term is starting, because at the children's program or even in the prison, when with the women, all their prayer requests are please pray for school. So it's like a really big deal. It's always on people's minds Because they have to pay for it. They have to pay for it and even a lot of the women who are in the prison are there for debt and oftentimes that debt is if they're a single mother and they can't pay for their children's school fees, then the school can basically have that mother arrested.
Speaker 1:So there'd be a mom could be in that prison because she's trying to get her kid educated and she couldn't pay her school fees, and they can have her arrested and thrown in that prison.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the last Tuesday that.
Speaker 3:so we go to the prison on Tuesday mornings, and the last time I was there before we came for our home visit, which we're on right now, um, a woman was there and she was pretty heartbroken because while her kids were at school, the police came and just took her away from the house and she's a single mother and she was just asking and it was because of that she couldn't pay the school fees and sometimes, like most schools are pretty gracious uh, what I have heard, they're very gracious um, so they'll give plenty of time or they'll just send the child home until, like, they'll say, you know, just stay at home sit out until you can pay the fee.
Speaker 3:So it's very rare, I think it's very rare that the school actually has people arrested. Um, but it can happen. And if the school has money, then they can basically pay the police to go and arrest somebody. And so, yeah, that woman was arrested and her, she was really heartbroken when we were there and her biggest prayer was, she said I don't have any way to contact anybody. So my kids, my children, just got home from school and I wasn't there. So I don't know if our neighbors are taking care of them. I don't know if my family members have, you know, figured it out and they're taking care of them. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:Um and and what's for her to get out of prison? How she get out of prison.
Speaker 3:Somebody has to pay either somebody has to pay or they will take. They will have like a court hearing and somebody from the school come and basically they it's almost like they, they barter, I guess and that person from the school can say we think that this amount of time would would like basically um pay for the debt that she had, or that she will, she'll have a punishment that you know the duration, for this long the time of her, of her sentence, yes, of her sentence, which is, which is similar, uh, to here in some ways.
Speaker 3:Um, so either she could pay, or somebody could pay it, or, um, they would have that that court date. And the court dates in Uganda are very similar to here, where a lot of times, um, you know, when we go to the prison every Tuesday, we have a time for prayer and half the prayer requests are for court dates, and then next Tuesday we get there and they pushed all the court dates and not a single person went, or the judge didn't show up, or the complainant didn't show up, you know. So it's at least around andrews, very similar to the system here it is it's.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like which, by the way, y'all are gonna hear not just dogs working but trucks going by. A big old cummins diesel just drove by and it's because we're literally leaning up on. My neighbor is Hank Parker Jr who has been on NSR and we're leaning up on his horse fence, but there are no horses in this place. We'll go over when we're done and see I want to show you his buckskin, but anyhow, excuse the background noise, but we're just enjoying this pretty day because it's been cold and nasty, so we're outside. That's similar to you know, your mama has done so much jail ministry locally and those women always ask for prayer for their kids, which is part of that's.
Speaker 1:Part of how Penwell Tutoring got started Was because there was a need we saw with our kids, with mo and juju. Well, juju, like man it's, for it's taking a lot of work to get her through school. And then so we're asking the folks at the school do other kids struggle? Their parents help? We're having to do a lot of work at home and I'm not assuming that folks are giving their kids the support they need at home, because we know the dynamic of the community. And so then Mama was in the prison, in the jail, rather doing her Bible studies, and moms would always be like I don't know, my kid's staying with an aunt or an uncle or grandmother or whatever. But you're right, the court system being delayed, it is bad here. It's so bad here. But the difference probably is just when they're in jail here they're going to get three meals a day. It's climate control. It's pretty rough being in that prison there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely not as rough as some places. But because I mean something nice is they are outside most of the day, which is quite nice, but there have been times where we've gotten there and they're in punishment and they won't tell us why and we're pretty sure like it's just an officer got mad really hastily and so they'll be locked in their rooms for 10 days, or there was one time that they had been in trouble and we got there and it's quite a big compound and they all were sitting on the ground and their punishment was they had to cut the grass with butter knife. So they're sitting there holding a few blades of grass at a time, just sawing with the butter knife. So it's not. It's.
Speaker 3:It's way better than a lot of places, but definitely not as nice as even the less good jails, probably in this area but I do I think like one of the reasons that when greg started going to the men's prison it was so much on my mind to to try to get into the women's prison was because of mama and because I had seen that so much in my life growing up and I kind of jokingly but kind of for real, always tell greg like I think that growing up in andrews in a lot of ways like prepared me for living in Arua it's so funny or just for the life that we live, Because even like this this time around for our home visit, we traveled so much and slept in so many people's houses and that was a lot of growing up with you going around speaking places was us traveling and it's like oh you know your
Speaker 1:life is familiar, at least.
Speaker 3:So I'm really thankful for that.
Speaker 1:Well, so that was a little interruption there. Our neighbor, jack, who struggles with addiction, just walked up and we had a little conversation. He could not recognize Kilby. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, just how your life is like between growing up here.
Speaker 1:the type of ministry that just kind of prepared you yeah we did, we, uh, when you were young there was, we would go. I remember there was every February. We would go on. I remember there was every February. We would go on like a three-week trip where Mama would would have y'all in the back of a 15 passenger van was that when we go to florida?
Speaker 3:yeah, I remember that that was always the biggest one.
Speaker 1:That's yep, and that's when we started calling it world tour. So we would take our band, the band would play music, I would speak, we would be somewhere pretty much every night, sometimes two nights at a time, and we would hit all of the florida churches that wanted to be involved in that in a two to three week run and y'all would y'all do school, sit in the back of the van while we're going between places, and then we'd usually about every third stop, we'd stay for two nights, just kind of break it up. You did, you traveled a lot and also, I mean I think you went out of the country. I mean, how old were you the first time you went out of the country with me?
Speaker 3:Six. I was five or six, I think yeah when we went to Honduras.
Speaker 1:Because I have pictures of that.
Speaker 3:I can remember that, I can literally. I have very vividly in my mind the morning when it was still dark and we were at our old small stone house. And we got in the car and drove to camp and met everybody and then went to.
Speaker 1:Got on the bus. Yeah, like three the bus, like three in the morning, and I remember that's the trip. Do you remember that little girl, nicole? Yes, she was from roatan, and so people that were like black people in honduras were more discriminated against. I remember she was, but she took to us and, uh, y'all were buddies nicole and also jessica.
Speaker 3:That was one of the girls as well. And she had some issues from abuse. I remember and she actually moved to Tennessee. She got moved to an orphanage in Tennessee. Anyways that was my first time.
Speaker 1:And then you started going every year. And then we went to India. The first time we went to India you were 11. Gary turned 12. And that we went to India. The first time we went to India, you were 11. Gary turned 12. And that was like a two-week trip and we have a picture that little kid we thought was a boy.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I came to find out that, because they were Muslim, they weren't Hindu, they were Muslim, and the reason we thought it was a boy was because her head was shaved and that is like a very, very normal thing within Islam for young girls.
Speaker 2:But I didn't know that, you didn't know that I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:And we just assumed that it was a little boy.
Speaker 1:We're literally in the slums of Mumbai, india, literally in the slums, walking shack to shack. Those shacks were made out of cardboard and pieces of tarp and plastic and they made chai tea for us. We sat in there and you told a couple Bible stories. That was so cool, and then you merely played. I played cricket with those boys. I forgot about that, yeah, and I didn't know what I was doing. I forgot about that. I hit the ball and either it went into the ocean, because they're right there on the coast, or it went on a building. But I remember I was like okay, guys, I'll buy y'all another cricket ball. We had to go find a street vendor. That's a good memory. But we, when you were I think one thing that's interesting to people is the way the Lord works when you were 13, almost when you were 13, almost 14, is when we went and lived in Uganda working towards getting Juju and Mo home.
Speaker 1:That was a four-month process, almost five-month process, but at that point you were praying about when you grew up, going to India and it's just cool the Lord led you back there. I'd like to pivot a little bit and talk about because you're working in arua, uganda, but, uh, talk a little bit about south sudan. Yeah, which like the desire to be there. What time you have been there? Why you're not there now and it's what's going on there which quick.
Speaker 3:I think everybody always assumes that we're in Uganda because of Julia and Moses, um, which that is very cool, um, that the Lord has brought us to the same place. But Juge and Mo are from like 16 hours from where we're, from where we live, so it's um, it's not the same place and um, I definitely think it was really cool. So Greg, my husband he felt called to missions from a very young age and thought he would be in South America. I felt very called to missions from a young age and thought we would be, I would be in India, and we always joke that like the Lord averaged the two and now we're in East Africa in between those places.
Speaker 3:But, um, it was very cool because we both separately, before we even knew each other, had really um amazing experiences in Uganda. Of course, for me it was when my parents and my family adopted Juliet and Moses, and then for Greg, he went and served kind of as an apprentice for some missionaries there, um, and so it's really cool because the Lord gave us really sweet experiences in Uganda. But it was just seemingly a coincidence that that's where we ended up. It wasn't like we specifically felt called to Uganda, we were looking for a place to go in the middle of COVID when we had been sent back from Belgium and somebody invited us to Arua, uganda, for six months and then we just never came back after after that, and that was four years ago. Um, and it's really cool, because greg asked my dad over the phone if he could marry me in a little cafe that is like a five minute walk from where we live now so that's pretty cool, so wild, yeah, yeah so cool
Speaker 3:um, but south sudan, sudan, is where we love. We love Uganda as well. We love Arua, but we feel very much a passion for the people and the place where we serve in South Sudan. Arua is definitely not. It's off the beaten path a bit in in Uganda, but there are missionaries there besides us. There are churches there. The problem is finding a church that isn't corrupt, a church that shares the gospel, but in South Sudan there's a lot less of that.
Speaker 3:The village where we live, where we serve I shouldn't say where we live, the village where we serve and where we would love to live, is a place where, um, there have have not really been that many westerners and outside influence. So we feel very passionate about that village. It is um. I think greg and I could easily say we've never loved a place and longed for a place so much. Has given us a taste and a glimpse of what heaven will be like, because I think we've dealt with a lot of difficulty in being there and I just feel like until we reach heaven, I won't really feel that same sense of being in the place where I love wholeheartedly and deeply. So it's definitely helped me look towards heaven and long for that day.
Speaker 1:And the difference. So Arua, the city y'all live in now I say city, I use that word loosely the area you live is in northern Uganda. North of y'all is the border with South Sudan and west of y'all is the border with DRC or the Congo, where there's a lot of fighting right now, a lot of a lot of war going on there. And so to get into South Sudan, y'all don't just drive over the border. You, you have a small airplane that your missionary mentor owns and y'all will fly in that into the village in South Sudan and then when get like when you fly into that village, life is way different there than it is in Arura, and so maybe talk a little bit about the difference, like what, how those people live. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:It's wild because, um, me and my dad were, when we were getting coffee before coming here or before, uh, starting this podcast. He was talking about growing up poor and he said, you know, like I, we didn't know we were getting coffee before coming here or before starting this podcast. He was talking about growing up poor and he said, you know, like we didn't know we were poor, but I know now that we're poor, but then it was just life, and I think that is a big difference. I mentioned that in Uganda, where we live, there's like there's a lot of NGOs, a lot of humanitarian groups, and they have done a lot of good and they've also done a lot of harm as far as making people very dependent on them. A lot of handouts.
Speaker 3:There's a book called when Helping Hurts and there's one specifically that has specifically been written for Africa, because it's such a, it's such a big deal and it jades. It's really hard to not become jaded in that place, because there are friendships that seem so solid and so good and then, after a year or two, you realize that person has been just trying to get close to you for money or for school fees, um, and so it's hard to sometimes to trust people, to be very frank and honest, um, and so it's really difficult and I didn't realize how much that weighed on me until we started going to South Sudan, and it was so refreshing to be in a place where people weren't asking for things, they were just content to live. And it's crazy, because the poverty in Uganda is, it's very real and it's very difficult. It's more than anything I have or ever will experience. But the poverty in South Sudan is so much worse and yet they have no idea that they're, that they're poor in a lot of ways. Like, uh, people in Arua, um, they know they're poor because humanitarian groups have come in and said, oh, you're so poor, let us help you now, you know, let us do these things. But in South Sudan, life is hard, yes, and people know it, but in their minds that's not because they're poor, it's because that's how you survive, that's a way of life. Um, and life is very different there. And I want to be very careful because I I did a podcast here on here really early on into moving to East Africa.
Speaker 3:I think we had lived in Uganda like four months and I remember we did a podcast and I talked and talked on there, yada, yada, and then when it came out I listened to it and I literally cringed and I couldn't even finish the podcast listening to the podcast, and I've never listened to it since because I sounded so unsuff like, just unbelievably, insufferably prideful in the way I was talking. And I look back now and I'm like I didn't know anything about anything. And I still don't know a lot, but at least I'm aware that I don't know anything now.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I want to really not be prideful in the way that I talk about this place and not build it up or build us up in us being there and wanting to serve there up?
Speaker 1:or build us up in us being there and wanting to serve there. Well, and I could say even today at lunch, or not at lunch but at coffee, when I said I didn't know we were poor For context, that was in the context of telling a funny story. But the poorest people here have so much more than the poor of South Sudan, Like it's that, the way you describe that poverty and what we've seen, you know, like when mama and Laila went and flew in there with y'all, like what does a normal daily diet consist of for an average family there?
Speaker 3:It's usually in South Sudan. It's usually that same. So in Uganda it's called Inyasa, in South Sudan it's called Madipi, but it's just cassava flour mixed with boiling water and then usually something that you can kind of dip it in, so beans, sometimes okra paste, mixed with boiling water. In South Sudan there is only one rainy season, wherein in Uganda there's two, and so usually from July, june, july, august, around that time those are just called the hungry months in South Sudan, and all the food runs out from your harvest from the year before and we have friends who will just like go and find leaves on trees and boil them and eat them, because they just need something. You see everybody who already most people are quite thin and you just see them lose so much weight. It's like very, very, very special if you get to eat meat and most people to eat meat. It's true, it's like very, very, very um special if you get to eat meat and most people to eat meat. It's like a little piece of meat the size of it.
Speaker 3:You get to taste it like the size of a chicken nugget yeah, yeah um and um, we, there's, it's just mud huts, there's not really electricity, there's not running water. Um, we are very fortunate in our hut and in the area where we serve when we're there, we have solar power that's on pretty consistently, and then you just have wells and boreholes for water During the rainy season. There's a river not too far from the village that people are so excited about, and, yeah, it's in Uganda. We, we speak english, which is such a huge praise, a huge blessing. Um, but in south sudan, nobody speaks english, or very, very few people, I should say, none of the women that I know speak any english, and so it's all, uh, the local language there.
Speaker 1:What's the name of the people and the language. I don't know if I can, if we could share it on here. Oh, okay, good, call good call um, um, it's mind your business, mind your business speaking, okay, while we're standing here. Okay, our listeners know moe, so while did you see what he just drove by?
Speaker 1:with his, with his makeshift trailer for his friends moe has spent what a week building a trailer to go behind the four-wheeler. And we just saw the maiden voyage he just went by. It is a half a sheet of plywood. He's cut it with my. I have a steel chainsaw that's a battery-powered chainsaw for when we're just cutting limbs. He's done all the work with that. He has disassembled a skateboard. He's taken two skateboards, taken the wheels and trucks off and made a trailer out of skateboard trucks and a piece of plywood.
Speaker 3:And now he's driving and used one singular nail to attach it to the four wheeler.
Speaker 1:Yes, to attach with a piece of rubber and then he's now going down there to pick up his buddies and he's going to drive them back over here. So he's going to pick up his two buddies, brothers named Gus and Oscar, and he's going to bring them and they're going to play in the pond right there. We just got interrupted again by our friendly neighbor, but anyway, yeah. So Mo will be back through here in a minute. I'm sure y'all will hear him. Could you tell one of my favorite stories that just shows the sovereignty of God working in all of this is the story of the gal at the prison that said she was that was not interesting.
Speaker 1:Let's this back jump back to uganda um, which, by the way, y'all are two home family. You have homes in two countries. Somebody was, somebody was here one day talking about it was. I met some wealthy people in the valley here. They were asking for directions. They had an accent and they have. Apparently they're from france but they have a home in Florida and now they're looking at buying a home here. And I said and I chuckled, I thought, oh, my daughter has a home in two countries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, basically yeah, so we do spend most of our time in Uganda. We would love to spend most of our time in South Sudan. We haven't been able to since May of this past year because of some difficulty and security issues with a new man there who's been put in a position of authority. So, yeah, we spent most of our time, a lot of our time in Uganda the past year, and a big part of that has been the prison, and there's a woman there who I love. Her name is Winnie, and the wild thing is that there is so much turnover at the women's prison there that most of the women that I know and love could be gone by the time we get back there next week. Yeah, and that's just the nature of things. That's something I am really, really bad at saying goodbye to people in general, and I, the Lord, has had to really like help me hold things with a very open hand, because there's so much transition and unrest in East Africa that there are dear friends that you never get to say goodbye to. There are people who you think will be around for a long time and suddenly they're back in South Sudan or they have moved away for forever. Um, so, anyways, all that to say, this woman could still be at the prison, she could be back in her home. But her name is Winnie and she is maybe a few years older than me, I want to say but I could be very wrong about that Um, and we were at the prison a few weeks before I left, and so this would be like in September and of last year and she, she told us she was, we had a time of testimony and she was saying I praise God so much because she okay, let me give some context, that a lot of the women Greg gets on me sometimes for saying this when I say they're not criminals because they have done something, but they're not criminals in the sense that we would imagine in the US.
Speaker 3:So there are women who are there because there's a woman who's there because she bought a dress that was stolen and she did not know it was stolen, and she's been there for four years and she did not know it was stolen, and she's been there for four years. And there's a woman who was attacked by a man and she afterwards heard that he was attacking other. He was very much older than her. She heard that he was trying to attack other young girls, teenage girls, and so she went and threw acid on him and she has been in prison for a very long time and has a very long time left to go. So different situations like that, that, of course, what has been done is wrong, but it's not necessarily what you picture as criminals.
Speaker 3:But this woman, winnie, I will say she is in there for something that she did that was very wrong. So she's one of the few who would maybe be in there for an offense that you would imagine someone being in prison for, if that makes sense. And so she had been in another prison in a place called Gulu, which is about five to seven hours from where we live, and she tried to escape. And so they moved her to the prison in Arua and they added more time to her sentence and she was praising God.
Speaker 3:She said I thank the Lord, I praise God that I got caught when I was trying to escape, because if I had not got caught I would not have been brought to this prison, and if I hadn't been in this prison I would never have heard who Jesus Christ was, I would never have heard the gospel, and I have hope and peace that I never had in my life before and I know what will happen to my life. I know where I'll spend eternity and I praise God that he saved me. I praise God that he let all those bad things happen so that this could, this could be what my life came to. So it's a lot of hardship and it's a lot of difficulty, but we really praise the Lord that he's working Um and a lot of it.
Speaker 1:I love that story. I've told a lot of people that story and I almost told it on here on an episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm very thankful for her and she leads the worship now for the prison ministry and she's very passionate, so, yeah, very grateful. I would like to share just really quick what we do in South Sudan, because it is my favorite ministry I've ever been a part of Me and Greg.
Speaker 3:We always say that we feel this maybe sounds dramatic, but we do always say that we feel like we're living in the book of Acts. It is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. John Piper says that missions exist because worship does not. I think such a big goal for my family as missionaries is that people wouldn't be reliant on us, that there could be a day where we wouldn't have to lead the children's program because there would be a Ugandan who would be leading, that we wouldn't have to go to the prison because there would be other Ugandans who were entering into the prisons. And that is basically what is happening in South Sudan, not because of us, um. So we have only been there for a very limited amount of time. There's a man who is our mentor, who has served there faithfully for 20 years, and we're basically graciously able to just ride on the back of what he has done, um, and just help in any way that we can. So we just we play a very, very, very small role in that village. It is in large part what this man and his family have done, and then the faithful Sudanese people who have carried that on. So South Sudan is the newest country in the world. It has been there for a very long time, but it only in 2014, I believe, broke away from North Sudan, 2011. 2011. 2011. Broke away from North Sudan and it is very broken.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of witchcraft and a lot of Islam, and so there are some areas in South Sudan where Westerners are not allowed because they either, uh, for religious reasons or they think that we're coming to um, take over their land, um, which is a very sad reality, um, so most of these places are Muslim. There's one, there's one place in particular, uh, that has really it's really quite dark. It's a lot of Islam mixed with witchcraft. I won't give the name of the place, but it's one of the earliest places where African people were selling their own tribesmen to Westerners for slavery in the 18th century and 19th century as well, and there are pits. There are kind of big pits there. You can still see in the village I've never been, but this is what we've been told where they would bring their, their fellow tribesmen and they would just drop them in those pits and wait for Westerners to come and to claim them and take them to serve as slaves for the rest of their life. For the rest of their life. So it's a very dark place. Um, there's a lot of stigma around that place because Africa is a very communal uh, culture East Africa, I should say and so the the? Um shock that people would sell their own people. Um, even still, even though it's hundreds of years later, it it speaks a lot to that, that place, in those tribes, and so, um, anyways, there's places like that where we would love to go and we are not welcome.
Speaker 3:And so there's this village, the village where we sometimes live and the village where we sometimes serve in South Sudan, and they are very peaceful people. Even when South Sudan has been on the brink of civil war, this place has remained mostly peaceful. It's very small, very secludedink of civil war, this place has remained mostly peaceful. It's very small, very secluded out of the way, and so what we do is we share the gospel there and we teach Bible stories. So there's a very low literacy rate and it is an oral culture, meaning people, anything that people know has been passed down orally and most of them it's amazing, most of them can recount their lineage 10 generations back, and that's very normal. Most of them can speak four or five languages and they can't read or write any of them, and that is the norm.
Speaker 3:And so what this missionary has done is he has composed and compiled stories from the gospel, from the Bible, and he teaches them to the people there and they memorize them. And it is amazing because I have taught these stories a few times and I could have taught it already, and each time I teach it I have to go back and listen to it on audio and remember and recall. But these, especially the women that I've seen, they can hear these stories. They're three to five minutes and once they hear it once or twice, it is locked in their brain and it is not going anywhere. So the same plane that brings us from Uganda to South Sudan then takes these Sudanese missionaries, puts them on the plane and they have these stories from the Bible in their mind. And this plane takes them to these villages where we as Westerners aren't accepted. But the Sudanese missionaries are accepted because, even though they're not from the same tribe, they are Sudanese, and so then they get to share the gospel in these villages that are Muslim and witchcraft or pagan, I should say. And that is what we do when we're able to be there, and it is a joy, it is a delight. There are people who walk miles at a time so that they can share with people who they know are dying without the gospel. So I'm very, very thankful to be a part of that.
Speaker 3:And then the last thing, on the presentation which my dad keeps referring to, that it's just when we're in the States and we're going around sharing at churches we have just a little very informal what is it called? Slideshow of what we do. And so the last thing that we started doing last year is a radio program. So, um, if people have iPhones in Africa in East Africa it's very new, not very many have them Um, people don't really have TVs and radio is the main means of entertainment.
Speaker 3:So if people are in the garden, uh, working for hours at a time, they have the radio on their neck. If people are selling in the market, they have the radio that they're playing. And, um, someone the Lord totally worked it out, because a few years before this, we had tried to start a radio program and they the the people at the station were really trying to make a lot of money off of it, which we didn't have. And then it just took time, the Lord's timing, and last year the door opened for us to have broadcasts on the Christian radio station. So there's five times a week where we share Bible stories.
Speaker 3:John Piper sermons, things like that, and we've been told that the broadcasting in Arua can reach around six six million people in Congo, south Sudan, because it's a very flat terrain and I don't know how many of those six million are actually listening. A big prayer request is that a lot of the Muslim people actually listen to the Christian radio because we've been told they like the music on there better than the other stations. So the big prayer would be that when our programs come on they don't switch it to another station, that they would listen and hear the stories of Jesus Christ as Lord, not just as good man or good teacher or good prophet. So that's a huge prayer.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. I love that. Yeah, I love it. Well thanks, yeah, love you, I love it.
Speaker 3:Well thanks, yeah, love you, I feel like I just rambled a bunch, so hopefully some people can make something out of that and be encouraged or know how to pray for East Africa more specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they can follow y'all. Yeah, follow the journey, get your email. Yeah, what's the best way? Should we just link that?
Speaker 3:You can? Yeah, you get your email. Yeah, what's the best way? Should we just link that you can? Yeah, you can. Um, we'll link the email. So we'll link the email that you can reach out to. If you wanted to join our newsletters. We're pretty inconsistent with them, but we do share on there, and then we have a website as well, um, and we're not opposed to adding people on facebook who we don't know so you can follow. Follow along. We're we're not the best oftentimes at sharing, but we try to share when we're able.
Speaker 1:And how does that work? Like, if they look for you on Facebook, it's just by your name.
Speaker 3:Just Kilby Helms.
Speaker 1:Greg Helms, greg Helms. Yeah, what is the Greg? The wonderer thing.
Speaker 3:That used to be instagram, but we both got sick and tired of being addicted to social media, so we only have like old farts.
Speaker 1:We only have facebook nowadays, so well, I'm older, fart and I have zero yeah, so used to be uh on instagram, but now it's just facebook okay, so, and then we'll just link that where they can.
Speaker 1:They can look you up on on facebook and then they we'll link where they can sign up for your email. So, thank you, I love you, I love you. I love you so much. And Jack just came over and visited with us. Roxy walked by, pulled his trailer by. It's been a good, it's been a good afternoon, yeah Well, I'm wrapping this show up, this episode rather up, several days after that conversation with Kilby, several days after that conversation with Kilby, and I hope that you got kind of a peek into what they're doing and their part of the world.
Speaker 1:As you can imagine, as a dad, I don't think I could be any more thankful. I'm hesitant to use the word proud, though I know all parents are proud of their kids. Just thankful, my heart is full. They are, as we're dropping this episode and I'm recording this kind of wrap up today, and we're going to drop it today as you're getting this. They are now in, they're back in country. We put them on a plane a couple of days ago, the day after we recorded, and they made it safely back to that side of the world, safely back to that side of the world.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow they'll be traveling 10 hours by vehicle across a pretty rough landscape to get to their primary area of ministry, where their base is. So be in prayer for them and thank you for following along. Thank you for your support at NSR. It's something we're very grateful for, and I would ask that you pray for my daughter, pray for Kilby, pray for my little grandbaby, who I call Punky, who I love so much, and pray for Greg that he would lead well and that they would be smart and safe. There's an element of risk where they're at. Of course, they're serving in a very difficult part of the world. There's always a threat, and so we cover your prayers for them and appreciate it. We'll have another episode up soon.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
