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In the Footsteps of St. Thomas (with Bishop Daniel Timotheos): Spreading the Gospel in the Indian Ocean World
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- [00:00]
Marshall Po
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and if you're listening to this podcast on the New Books Network, I bet you like to read. I know that I do. That's why I founded the New Books Network. So as readers, we need to know what to read. And I have a podcast to recommend for you. That being the Proofread podcast. Do you have a goal to read more this year? How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread podcast is here to help you. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and what books aren't. They have 15 minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. They offer a brief synopsis, there's fun and witty commentary, and there are no spoilers and no sponsored reviews. Life's too short to read a bad book, so subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming soon.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Hi. I'm here to pick up my son, Milo. There's no Milo here who picked up.
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Unknown Speaker (Parent)
My son from school.
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Peacock/Advertisement Voice
Streaming only on Peacock.
- [01:09]
Unknown Speaker (Parent)
I'm gonna need the name of everyone.
- [01:11]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
That could have a connection. You don't understand. It was just the five of us. So this was all planned.
- [01:16]
Choral Singer/Reader
What are you gonna do?
- [01:17]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
I will do whatever it takes to get my son back. I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other. All her fault.
- [01:26]
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- [01:59]
Marshall Po
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:13]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
The world is categorized by like world, abc. And what it means is one category is places like America, Europe that has been already, like, saturated with Christ in the gospel. Another category is one that the gospel has been presented but not saturated. And then the last category is those that are still waiting, like the really difficult places.
- [02:38]
Chris Odiniec
Bishop Daniel Timotheos talks like a Texas Protestant in terms of church planting and Giving your heart to Christ. But actually he is a bishop in the Orthodox Church of India, where his father was born, his native village close to where the Apostle Thomas landed almost 2,000 years ago. But Bishop Daniel is not part of the old Malankar Syriac Church of India, but of something called the Believers Eastern Church, which was founded by his father, who was consecrated by an Anglican bishop and studied in a Southern Baptist seminary before founding this new Eastern Orthodox Church in India. Continuing his father's work in evangelization, Bishop Daniel is the leader of GFAWorld, which works to bring the gospel to those who've never heard it before to 5 million people in 16 countries from East Africa to Southeast Asia and growing across what we might call the Indian Ocean world. And what I admire most about his method is how the GFA uses missionaries from these countries so that the evangelization effort is not an outside imposition, some kind of colonial experience, but a local initiative. Compatriot to compatriot, neighbor to neighbor.
- [03:48]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
They want their own people to know what they've experienced themselves.
- [04:02]
Chris Odiniec
Good morning and welcome to Almost Good Catholics, a conversation about theology and apologetics. I am your host, Chris Odiniec and I get to talk with interesting people about the interesting things and hopefully the conversation will help us discover the truth with a capital T. If you'd like to be part of the conversation, please email me@almostgoodcatholicsmail.com today I'm talking with Bishop Daniel Timotheos. He is a bishop in the Believers Eastern church with over 20 years of leadership in one of the largest mission movements in the world. Bishop Daniel offers rare first hand insights into what it takes to reach those who don't know Christ. Today he leads a movement that is transforming entire communities across Africa and Asia, not with Western resources alone, but by raising up indigenous missionaries equipped to bring the gospel through long term culturally rooted impact. So welcome, Bishop Daniel, to Almost Good Catholics.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Thank you. It's good to be here.
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Chris Odiniec
Today we're Catholics with a little C. We're talking about the universal Pilgrim church here on Earth. Do you have a funny joke or story to share?
- [05:05]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
My, my daughter actually gave me, she bought me a Christmas present but couldn't wait till Christmas. So she gave me, she gave to me early. Lydia gave me a little box of dad jokes, so little cards. And so one of, I said, why don't you pick out some jokes that I could, I could use? And so one of the jokes was, why, why did, why did the scarecrow win an award?
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Chris Odiniec
Why. Why did the scarecrow Win an award.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Because he was, he was outstanding in.
- [05:34]
Chris Odiniec
His field as a classic, beautiful, excellent dad joke. So you're a, you're a bishop and a dad, so I know you're not Roman Catholic. Who are the believers of the Eastern Church? Tell us a bit about. Are you guys. Am I correct that you are part of the Anglican Communion?
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
No, we're, we're actually Orthodox in our faith.
- [05:55]
Chris Odiniec
Like Eastern Orthodox is in the Greek or Russian.
- [05:58]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah, so the, you know, my, my, my father is the one who started the ministry of GFA World, but he was also consecrated as the first Metropolitan Bishop of our, of our church. But interestingly, he comes from a very, very small village in South India called Netanyam. This is the exact place where St. Thomas came in A.D. 52. So my, my father's community, the St. Thomas Christians there have 2,000 years of Christian history. And I mean it's quite, quite significant. You can still go and see some of the places where St. Thomas actually established the churches and one of them happens to be in his village. So when my father was 16 years old, he did not know that there was other people in his own country that had never heard about Christ. It was some missionaries who was sharing the challenge of missions. And he was very shy. So he actually climbed a tree that hung over the river to hear the challenge call for young people to go into ministry. And so he joined a youth team. And the next eight years of his life he actually spent doing practical missions and sharing Christ with people, praying for the sick and getting that practical experience. Many of his team members were beaten. They were often chased out from places. Sometimes their Bibles were completely burned, you know, and chased out. But that, that was the very beginnings of his journey in missions, but also in, in the faith. So when you fast forward, you know, what God has done in the last 45 years of the missions work is, you know, we have about 12,000 parishes spread out in about 16 different nations. Nearly about 5 million members of our church in these different nations in Africa and also Asia. But at the root of everything we have is missions. And so our, our church is a very missions minded church. In fact, many of the places that I myself have gone to. You go into the village and you ask someone, you know, do you know Jesus? And a typical response will be something like this, my friends are here, my family's here. Your friend Jesus is not here. Check the next village down that road and maybe you'll find your friend Jesus. They're trying to be very helpful, but literally, yeah, they don't even know. They don't even know the name. You know, it's, it's, it's interesting because I grew up both on the east and west side, so I was born here in America. Or you can say the country of Texas.
- [08:39]
Chris Odiniec
The Republic of Texas.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Republic of Texas. And, but I also got to grow up in the mission field, so I have a very weird perspective and unique experience of both east and west. I could see the good and bad of both. I mean, here it's really, really hard not to hear the gospel in some way. Yeah, it's not, you know, and I do run into people who really don't know. But you can walk into Walmart, you can pick up a Bible, you can turn on the radio. There is Christian radio, there's Christian podcasts. You can walk into a church, good, bad or ugly, whatever it is. There is churches on the mission field. I've driven for 400 miles, not seen a single church. There is no official Christian radio station in many of these nations. It's not allowed. You know, so you, you, you have this reality that most the doesn't have access to the Christian faith like we think, you know, we have. You know, in fact, I mean, you can walk down the street in any town in America and someone will be cursing Christ's name. I mean, at least his name is being proclaimed, you know. You know, I mean, go, go to Walmart today, pick up a Bible and look where it's printed. Most probably the Bible is printed in China. I mean, it's a little bit, it's kind of fun, a little bit of irony. So we, we, we take Bibles, we try to smuggle Bibles into China and then they're printing them for us and sending them back. I mean, it's. My point is we are so blessed to have so much of the Christian faith embedded and entwined within our culture and who we are. That's not the reality for most of the world. And where we send our national missionaries who are people from their own country, who know the language, who like the bugs, who like the climate, already know the language, live at the level of people. They are some of the greatest, greatest ones to bring the message of Christ to their own people. And so GFA World really is about raising national missionaries and sending them out into these places to establish the faith, but also to establish churches so that those who are coming to Christ have a place to be rooted in the life and the sacraments that has always been there. So this is a little short history, but the roots of Everything we have goes all the way back to St. Thomas. I mean, A.D. 52 too.
- [10:55]
Chris Odiniec
Yeah. So that is 2,000 years ago. As you're saying, the Apostle Thomas went to India, what is today called Chennai. Correct. But when, when I was a kid, it was called Madras. So. And that's where your father was born.
- [11:09]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
So Chennai is in the next state over. It's one state over. That's where. That's where he was martyred.
- [11:13]
Chris Odiniec
So that's where he was martyred. He didn't.
- [11:15]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
So he, he landed on the Kerala coast, which is the west side. He planted about seven churches along the coast, netting them being one of them. Where's where my father is? He went, he straight over east to the next state very close by and begin to share Christ with the royal family. And that kind of made some people upset. He ended up being speared to death and martyred for the faith. So when you look at the, the icons of St. Thomas from that side of the world, he always has a spear in his hand where typically most of the icons have a cross for those who have been martyred. But St. Thomas holds a spear kind of signifying, you know, the, the martyrdom that he faced.
- [11:54]
Chris Odiniec
The mo. The mode of death.
- [11:56]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah, the mode of death. But in one way it's interesting, you know, saying, you know, Thomas, put your hand here in my side. Yeah. Leaving. How was, how was he martyred? Well, he got speared through the side also. And so it's kind of like St. Peter crucified upside down, not feeling worthy to be crucified as a savior. And St. Thomas got to experience also the blessing of martyrdom in a similar way as his, as his master. So the, you know, that, that was for us, St. Thomas really is almost like the patron saint of missions. I mean, he's the one who, who committed his life to travel all the way to, to India, establish a faith. And for 2,000 years, missionaries have been sent out from that part of the world to the rest of India and other parts of the world. And so those are kind of the beginnings of, of our roots for missions and also our church. But, you know, the.
- [12:50]
Chris Odiniec
Would it be appropriate to call your, the church that your father established? Would it be appropriate to call it the Indian Orthodox Church or is there another Orthodox church? The way there is like a Greek Orthodox or a Bulgarian orthod or a Russian Orthodox.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
I mean, it's, it's believers. Easter Church is, is unique in itself. And the reason why is most, most other churches are, are connected to a work that has Already been established, you know, either hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago. So when you, when you think of some of the, some of the establishment that's happened like in up in Russia or in Alaska or in some of these other grand places or because our missions work was, was being done in places where there was no churches, there was no, no Christians. Literally in many places, they're not a single Christian. Not a single Christian witness. It. It is what you see in the book of Acts. It is, it is a move of the Holy Spirit where people are coming to Christ and coming to faith. And because my father was, you know, consecrated in the apostolic succession, we, we have that lineage of being.
- [14:02]
Chris Odiniec
Is that, is that the, where I got the Anglican.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah, you got that, you got that part there. But he was not consecrated to be an Anglican bishop and it was understood he's consecrated for the glory of God so that this church can continue going forward in, in the, you know, the Orthodox faith. Yeah, that's being established. But you know, anyone that travels in the mission field, they literally are, they literally are blown away because they say this, this, this doesn't exist in history. You know, what God has, you know, 45 years is equal to what people would see in 400 years of church history, of missions history. And the, the reason for that is if people want to learn more about kind of what's underneath a lot of that. I mean, there's a book, I can show it to you. It's called Revolution World Missions. It's, it's the book that my, my, my father wrote about the passion for missions, the heart of missions. People can get it free if they go to gfapodcast.org you can get a free copy of this. There' 4 million in print. This, this book will pretty much ruin everyone's life if you, if you get it, it'll wreck your life and ruin your life. And the reason is that sounds like the gospel.
- [15:15]
Chris Odiniec
And I will put that link in the down below. So everybody scroll on down and get, get your copy.
- [15:20]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah. And, and the thing is like it is missions is one of the few things that gets our eyes off of ourself and fixes that outward. I mean, Jesus talks so much in the Gospels about being other centered, not self centered. I mean the number one argument among the disciples, these great apostles that we look back on, you know, was who is the greatest in the kingdom. I mean you go through the Gospels, these ridiculous men, you know, that God used and picked so that whatever happened, which you read in the book of Acts. People would say it has to be God because we know where these people come from. And I think that's exactly what, what God did. God allowed these men to be the first apostles who were not great in themselves. I mean, the smartest one among the bunch was Judas. Came from a better part of town. Most educated. I mean, you got Matthew, the tax collector, the accountant, not catching on to Judas, stealing money for three and a half years. I mean, that's not a great, a great accomplishment. Two of them wanted to burn down an entire village. Peter's cutting off ears. Jesus is super gluing them back on. I mean, it's just a mess. Jesus was cleaning up after these apostles most time. But yet, you know, we read in the book of Acts, these were unlearned men, of course, like in the religious sense, but they recognized they had been with Jesus. And you know, my father's greatest challenge for us was always this. Your number one priority in life is to know Christ, know him more and more. Missions is not first. And yet when people look at GFA World, there is nothing else in history like this. Like you. You cannot see anything else like this. GFA World is understood as, as one of the fastest and largest church planting ministries in the entire world. And, and yet my father his. His passion.
- [17:15]
Chris Odiniec
And GFA is Gospel for Asia.
- [17:18]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
It was Gospel for Asia and then we ended up in Africa, so we had to change it to GFA World.
- [17:23]
Chris Odiniec
Oh, I see. Okay, so go.
- [17:25]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
So the vision expanded a little bit more. The, the reason for African Asia also, when you, when you take a map. Yeah.
- [17:34]
Chris Odiniec
The Indian Ocean Basin. Yes.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah. And you, and you look at the latitude 10 and 40 in the world of missions, that's kind of showing you the area where the most people that don't know Christ lives. Yeah. So it goes from part of North Africa all the way to Japan a bit to Russia a little bit down past India. It doesn't mean that outside of that is not important. It just means most of the unreached people groups are there. Most. The least amount of missions resources go there. The world is categorized by like world abc. And what it means is one category is places like America, Europe, that has been already like saturated with Christ in the gospel. Another category is one that the gospel has been presented but not saturated. And then the last category is those that are still waiting, like they're really difficult places. And most of the countries in that 1040 window block is where GFA World focuses because 80% of those nations are restricted or closed for outsiders to come in as missionaries now, you can go as a teacher or an engineer or doctor, that's fine. But to be full time focused on missions, you're not going to get a visa, you're not going to get a permit for that. And this is after World War II. So the answer really is national missions is a great opportunity. It's most cost effective. Plus, these people really believe, you know, and they, they want their own people to know what they've experienced themselves. And so, you know, GFA World focuses on those, on those areas with national missionaries and everything else. But, you know, that would be something practical for people to do if they want to learn more about missions. Get a world map. Yeah, your house. And when you, when you hear things on the radio or a podcast or on tv, like there's a famine or a war, like take a moment and pray, you know, if we, if we want to pray without ceasing, it starts with praying many small prayers throughout the day. That's where you, that's where we start, you know, and so transform your home.
- [19:47]
Unknown Speaker (Parent)
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- [20:16]
Chris Odiniec
So you said 16 countries even on your website, or at least maybe I saw it on Wikipedia. I don't know where I was reading about you, but it said Facebook 14 and it's at three and a half million already. It's gone to 16 and 5 million. So I think the miracle here is the explosive rate of growth that you have seen over your lifetime and career. Which, you know, if I said, hey, great job, you would probably say, well, it's not me, it's Christ in me. And there's something so how. And so, so one thing you're saying is let people do it their way, right? Don't try to, don't try to bring outside or cultural things into it. What, what. Tell us about this. Let me ask you, what are the 16 countries and how is it different across? Or how is it similar across? How's the project?
- [21:02]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah, I mean, some of the countries I, I can't, I can't name because they're, they're difficult or restricted countries. But, oh, I see, you know, many of the ones that are listed there, which you have in front of you are the ones that we can, you know, talk more about. But some of the countries that we're going into recently is, you know, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, possibly Thailand. And, you know, I know a lot of people got in Thailand, but we're talking about the villages in the areas in Africa. We're already in Rwanda. We're building our. Our second hospital. We have a hospital in. In India and a hospital in Rwanda. That will be the pathway forward for reaching all the rest of Africa. And then we're in Liberia, which is on the north, kind of northwest side of the country. We're going into Uganda, probably, possibly Zambia, and about, you know, 10 other countries. And so it's just that, you know, the. The door has opened up for us in Africa in such a significant way. What. You know, my. My father went to be with the Lord just about a little. A little more than a year and a half ago. And so he. He departed. We don't say usually died. He departed because we believe in the, you know, the church. Church triumph. He went home. He went home. Yeah.
- [22:20]
Chris Odiniec
Yeah.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
So, you know, before he left, you know, he. He was telling us that the opportunity outweighs the need. And I know it sounds like a strange statement, but, you know, if you think about it, people always see the need, and it either drives them to despair because it feels like, how can my $1, you know, do anything? You know, it's kind of like what Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, if you can't feed the hundred, at least feed the one, you know, and, you know, and it's like, it's not a. It's not, you know, don't downplay feeding the one. Like, you become Christ to that person, and you've done a similar thing. And so my father was pointing out, he's like, the opportunity is so great. Everything can make a difference. Every prayer can make a difference. Every gift can make a difference. Why? Because you are bringing the love of Christ to people who still are waiting to hear about Christ for the very first time. There was a. There was an old lady in a village in Asia where our missionaries went to this village. She was 102 years old.
- [23:19]
Peacock/Advertisement Voice
Wow.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
And our missionary, of course, you know, shared. Shared about Christ and the Gospel. And she said, I've been waiting my entire life to hear this. She had never heard this before. At 102 years old, she's giving her heart to Christ. And so, you know, this. This is the Story of countless, you know, thousands of places all over the mission field. You know, one of our missionaries is going house to house, door to door, sharing about Christ, which they typically do. And the family said is, can you pray. Can you pray for someone who's sick? In our family, we heard you talking about Christ.
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Chris Odiniec
Sure.
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Bishop Daniel Timotheos
So they let him through the house. The back side of the house, there was a sick water buffalo. Can you. Can you pray for the water buffalo? Yeah. And, you know, I mean, you asked, can I pray for someone? You know, so, okay, so our missionaries, you know, laid his hands on the stinky water buffalo and said, God, if there's ever time to do something, this is the time. And God healed that water buffalo. The families gave their hearts to Christ. The neighbors heard about it. They wanted to follow Christ. A church was planted in that village because of a water buffalo. And the reason is they would milk the water buffalo, sell the milk, and that's money for food.
- [24:30]
Chris Odiniec
Right. That's a tremendous economic engine is a buffalo.
- [24:33]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah. And so your sick water buffalo means you don't eat. I mean, that's. That's the condition of it. And so, you know, this is. This is the real reality of. Of what's happening in the mission field. God's very, very gracious. Literally, whatever you see in the book of Acts is happening in another village. There's a. There's one of our parishes. And when I say parishes, they're not like, you know, 10,000 people. You know, people. People will walk sometimes two or three hours away just to. To gather, you know, for. For divine liturgy and to. To worship. And outside the church is a cross, and there's all these black threads tied on all this cross. And it's like, what, you know, oh, those are all the people. Those are. Those represent all the people that God set free from demon possession. Interesting. And so, you know, a lot of these people that. That, you know, part of their religious practices is they go to these temples and they commit their life. These temples, and they wear these charms around, and they end up basically opening their life to demonic activity. And so all those black threads, you know, once God set them free, they broke those threads and they put them on the cross. And there's like 60 or 70 of them.
- [25:43]
Chris Odiniec
Yeah.
- [25:43]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
On there. And so it's not the same everywhere, but, you know, God is doing incredible things. One of our missionaries was, you know, walking down the beach, giving out gospel tracks, little leaflets, and some of these leaflets literally are like, you know, pennies for a penny. You can. You can share the Gospel, it's like, and he gave it to a man who was walking down the beach. Of course a missionary didn't know who had poison in his pocket. He had cancer in his body. And in a shame oriented culture, you don't want to leave that burden with your family. So he was planning to commit, commit suicide and end his life. And so he got this little, little pamphlet talking about Christ and thought, well, you know, might as well read this before I end my life. He reads it, hears about Christ, who loves him. Never heard this in his life. Prayed and asked, asked God to do something and he felt there was a change in his life, went back to the doctor, the cancer was gone. He thought the little booklet, you know, healed him. So he, he went and found a pastor and said, this booklet healed me. Like, can you please explain to me what happened? And of course the pastor like explained it wasn't the booklet, it was, it was, you know, God's, God's love and mercy. That man now is a missionary proclaiming Christ. And so, you know, it's, when I say it's the Book of Acts, it's, God is so merciful and so gracious in places that are just barren or just brand new areas where the Gospel needs to go forth and God is just pouring out his love towards people and people by thousands are coming to Christ. I mean, this is, and you know, the challenge is all of us, you know, we, we hear these stories and we think, oh, that's great, the national missionaries do their thing, but we also have a part to play. The Great Commission is not just for those missionaries there, but it's for me. If all I can do is pray faithfully, great, do that. If I can give, then I should do that. If I can live my life so that others can come to Christ, then we should do that. Otherwise we will have a very wonderful, robust faith. We will have worshiped every Sunday, we will have read and memorize our Bible and given our offering, and we will never have lived our life making a difference for others to come to Christ. And this is the gift that God has given to us. The gift to be born or be raised or to live in this nation with such freedom to worship and such freedom to know God in a way that most other people couldn't even dream about. But then we're also responsible for that. To use it to God's glory. And so to know Christ and to make him known really is the two focuses of our life. And it should always be that that.
- [28:28]
Chris Odiniec
Reflects the two great commandments. Of love, love God and love your neighbor. So how did you end up in Texas?
- [28:36]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
How do we end up in Texas?
- [28:37]
Chris Odiniec
How were you born in Texas?
- [28:38]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
I should say, yeah, I was born in Texas, but I guess how did the ministry headquarters also end up here too? Is. So after. After my father spent eight years of his life in North India.
- [28:51]
Marshall Po
He.
- [28:51]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
He got an invitation to study at Criswell Bible College, which is. Which is in Dallas in seminary. And some. Some people who. Who come from a Baptist background would. Would recognize as W.A. criswell was. Was still alive at that time. My father was the first international student to graduate from Criswell Bible College. And then actually WA Criswell ordained him as. As a minister that he pastored a small church in East Dallas for a couple of years. And this is like many, many years earlier where my father reflects back on that experience of being a pastor for a few years. And you fast forward like 30 years and he's like, that experience of being a shepherd really meant a lot later when he was consecrated, you know, and to realize, wow, it's not just about preaching, but now I have to take care of people in a. Much more significant. To be a shepherd over. Over literally millions of people. And so that's, you know, that's actually how we ended up in Dallas because he had gotten a scholarship to w. You know, to Criswell Bible College to do his theological studies at the same time starting the ministry. And that was the very beginnings of GFA World, you know, and, And.
- [30:12]
Chris Odiniec
And was this all in the sort of orthodox tradition? Because I just looked it up. It says it's a Baptist college from the Southern Baptist.
- [30:19]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
You know, again, like the, the background. The early, early days of my. My father's missions experience when he was 16 years old, it had nothing to do with church planting. It had everything to do with just literature and sharing Christ. And so if you look at the history of missions, most missions really does not focus on church planting. It focuses on just proclaiming Christ.
- [30:42]
Chris Odiniec
Yeah.
- [30:43]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
So that when. When gfa, when GFA World first started, it was kind of a continuation of that, sending missionaries out simply to proclaim Christ. It was only later, when people's lives were being turned towards Christ, we didn't know where to send them. There was no churches. There was like, nothing. There's nothing there. So, like, oh, okay, I guess. I guess we need to. We need to establish something that. And it was. I think. I think we do. I think we probably had, you know, 6,000, 7,000 churches before we even thought we should probably name this thing. And it wasn't out of arrogance or anything. We're like, okay, believers, Eastern church. Well, believers, you see, you know, in the scripture, that's. They were called believers, you know, and gather. Now it was. It was when my father began diving deeper into church history and also that reading the church fathers and realizing there was a continuation from the very beginning of the church, it did. It never ended. This faith has been carried on. And so our, our responsibility is to perpetuate the faith, not reinvent it over and over again. And so by the time that, you know, it's a longer story, but by the time, you know, he was consecrated as the first bishop, you know, metropolitan bishop in our church, the, the understanding was much, much more than just, hey, we need a gathering for a Bible study. But it was like, what is church? In light of the historical understanding rooted all the way back to the first century. So the church is not just now proclaiming Christ in a missions way, but it is to establish the faith in entire community, to see people come to Christ. But the heart of the missions movement is still the same. We still send national missionaries out because you're still sending them to places that don't know Christ. You're still praying for people, still helping people.
- [32:40]
Chris Odiniec
But so as. May I ask, are you always at the, like the, the white edges of the map where people have not gone before? Because if I consider a country like Uganda or Rwanda, those are on paper at least according to the State Department, 85% Christians, usually half Catholic, half Protestant, and then like 10 Muslim, you know, because that's just where they are on the map. But so where are you that nobody has heard of all this?
- [33:05]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Yeah, that's a. That's a both. That's a both and okay question. So it's. As the work expands, we expand beyond where we originally started from. So, like, when you talk about, like, North India, many, many places in North India, I mean, there was like 500,000 villages without. Without a single Christian witness. When you look in the mountains of Nepal, there's about 30,000 villages without Christian witnesses. When you look in Sri Lanka, there's thousands of. It doesn't mean that in those nations there. There isn't places where Christ isn't known. For example, in India itself, there's 2000 years of Christian history, but in other parts of the nation is not. So those are our beginnings. And the reason why our emphasis has always been looking for places that are still unreached is because that was the beginning. But as obviously as we expand into Rwanda or Uganda, these places. I mean, we're in Rwanda. Rwanda is very much Christian. It's a Christian base that we can expand. But there are many people in that own nation that, that don't know Christ. But the. To, to answer your question, more, more precisely, when, when the ministry was first beginning, my parents sold everything that they had gave away. Everything. And then they, they begin to support missionaries that they knew that was working in many of these countries. And my father's heart was, we want to send missionaries to places that need the gospel, like, in a desperate way. And so he thought that's what was happening, supporting those, those missionaries that he knew until someone challenged him and said, why don't you go and do some research and find out where those missionaries are? And he's like, oh, you know, we already know. But he went and did it anyway. And he came back almost like, like discouraged. He's like, all these people we've been supporting, they're in places that the faith has already been established. And so that, that shifted everything for us that we need to see our own missionaries raised up, our own training done. And then we were able to send missionaries out to very specific areas of these nations that still needed to see Christ brought to the places. Obviously, as, as the work expanded, you're getting into place, right? You know, the gospel is already being proclaimed or not saturated. And so that's, that's, you'll see a lot of that in Africa and other parts of Asia. But the heart is still the same, is we. We desire to bring Christ to places where people are still waiting for Christian witness in a significant way. But also, you know, what my, what my father saw, because he, he studied missions deeply. He, you know, he was understood to be a mission statesman and a missiologist. In one way. He would rather, he would rather be known as, as a, a, you know, a bishop or a priest than a missiologist. But when you look at the history of missions, and I know it overlaps with church, but when you look at the history of missions, much of what missions history is, is the beginning and the end of a movement. If you go to India right now, William Carey's movement, which is, you know, everyone studies that, you have books on it, there's like a quarter of an acre land left, Senator Cerampor, where the, where the seminaries are. And then, you know, you, you have so many examples of missions where all that's left is, are compounds around the world. And my father was always praying and asking and trying to figure out how do you keep missions from ending? Because, you know, in one way, missions organizations are, are in one way, can be like a, a business model where you have, you have a beginning and you have an exit plan. And a lot, a lot of them do. And what, what we realized that God showed us by accident was that if you have church planting and you are planting churches in the historical understanding where the sacraments are served and people are grounded in the faith, you have permanency, because then those churches continue to do missions. Which is why my father kept saying, the Book of Acts is our blueprint. So that's kind of our, our grounding is the Book of Acts as a blueprint? Yes. Missionaries were sent out, Paul was sent out, Silas was sent out, Barnabas was sent out. And then they would establish these churches, but then those churches would send out more missionaries and continue it. And so the church is, the, is. The only thing is in the very heart of God. And if people would understand that, they would recognize that the full circle of missions must have church planting on the end of it. It's not enough just to tell people Jesus loves you and they commit their life to God. They must be established in the faith and then continue missions also. And so this was something that was very, very dear to my, my father's heart, that missions is not complete until churches are established. You know, people can hear about the gospel, but they need more than just that.
- [38:20]
Chris Odiniec
Yeah, no, it is so beautiful, and I think this is a great place to stop. But I, I feel that you are the, you know, the little mustard seed that has grown 30, 60, 90 times and has birds roosting in its branches and kind of like when Jesus was in the temple at his. As a 12 year old. You can say I'm about my father's business. So thank you very much for telling us this beautiful story. I congratulate you and thank the Holy Spirit for bringing millions of people into our universal church and preaching the Gospel. Bishop Daniel, would you please end us with a prayer or a blessing for our listeners and their families and for missionaries everywhere?
- [39:07]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Absolutely. Be happy to. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we thank you for your grace and your mercy and your blessings. I thank you for this opportunity that we had to, to discuss different things on missions and faith. I pray especially for those that would hear this podcast with their hearts. Hearts would be lifted towards you, encouraged, challenged to live their lives in the light of eternity. I pray that you would continue to break our heart with the things that break your heart. That you would take eternity and stamp it on our eyes. That we would recognize that this life is a small gift that you have given to us. Not to waste on ourselves, but to be lived out, burned out. For your glory, we ask for your grace for all of us. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners. We give you all the praise and all the glory. We ask for this name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
- [40:12]
Marshall Po
Amen.
- [40:14]
Choral Singer/Reader
Nails spear shall pierce him through the cross. Be born for me. For you. And hail. Hail the word made flesh. The Babe, the son of Mary.
- [40:34]
Chris Odiniec
Chris Odinius and Bishop Daniel Timotheus recorded this conversation. Episode 108 on Thursday, November 6, 2025. That was the feast day of Saint Leonard of Noblaque, a seventh century Frankish saint from Lesin. He's the patron saint of prisoners, women in labor, and curiously, for the disease of cattle. So Bishop Daniel's story about the buffalo is definitely in his purview and jurisdiction. Therefore, in Bavaria, Saint Leonard is also the patron saint of farmers. Saint Leonard of NoBlack, pray for us. Our music is from Josh and Margot of the great Space Coaster Band. Check them out at www.and our logo. The image of the dog comes from the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos in a stained glass window. And it's taken with the kind permission of the Dominican friars of England, Scotland and Wales from their website, www.english.op.org. i'm Chris Odinius. Thank you so much for listening. May God bless you and protect you, you, you and your family. May he free you from anxiety. May his peace descend upon you and be with you forever. Amen. Talk to you next time on Almost Good Cat.
- [41:56]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
This.
- [41:57]
Choral Singer/Reader
This is Christ the King whom shepherds, God and angels sing.
- [42:09]
Bishop Daniel Timotheos
Sam.