Do you remember
this post from a few weeks ago? About the incredible door God opened up in a village that had been closed for 40 years? Well the flight bringing missionaries took place, and the follow-up story is even more exciting than the first part was. It seriously is by far the most exciting missionary story I have heard of since we got on the field.
(NOTE: Once again for safety reasons I'm leaving out names of villages and missionaries, etc. And for those who read part 1 originally, to reduce confusion I've decided to call Village A the fictitious name of Jarix and Village B the fictitious name of Dina.)
Since my last update I learned a few more details to fill in. Turns out that not only were there plans to fly in the missionary couple that I mentioned, but the plans were also for several Christians from Dina to also travel over to Jarix to spend time with the new believers as well. Together with the missionary couple, they planned to hold a mini Bible conference for the new believers in Jarix and anyone else interested. There was great concern about what the situation would be like because of the history of violence in Jarix, etc. but everyone who had committed to flying in, took a leap of faith.
As our pilot landed in the Jarix area with the missionary couple, at first they saw no one. Then, they saw native after native coming out of the surrounding jungle all painted from head to toe in bright red paint! The pilot, Rodrigo, became extremely converned. (Keep in mind that his people group had once successfully shot an arrow at Asas's plane!) Rodrigo couldn't remember what color of body paint represented peace in this culture...was it red or was it black? For a moment Rodrigo considered aborting the landing, then he remembered that in Jarix, red was in fact the color of peace. What these people were doing would be the same in our context as coming out with a white flag. A great sign! And the story only gets better...
Do you remember how a few people from Jarix had been baptized in Dina and then returned back home to Jarix? This was the last news that anyone knew of the new Christians from Jarix and everyone was concerned about what they would find. Did the new believers hold strong in their faith without any help or discipleship in such an opposed culture? Were they even safe?
Here's a email sent from one of the missionaries telling the story first hand. It was sent via a satalitte connection....
As it turned out, the tiny band [of "Jarix" who had been baptized] had not been interested in standing or holding anything against that insurmountable tide. They were determined to march forward pushing back the sea of darkness with the light that God had put in their hearts. They had been out evangelizing! (If I'm still allowed to use that word these days.) Two villages [that the new Jarix believers visited] said they did not believe in a God like that and would prefer the "big hot fire" to following him, but three other villages said they also remembered the missionaries talk and they would to come to a conference. And so it started. They were formally invited too.
On the 29th of November two flights were flown from ["Dina" to "Jarix"] carrying 8 leaders from our... church along with [the missionary couple]. After the second leg, Rodrigo, our mission aviation pilot, had already caught the fever. He said "I think I can make another leg to [Dina]! Call them on the radio and see if they have five solid church leaders who can be ready to go in 40 minutes." They did. Rodrigo flew like a maniac and squeezed in the extra flight before dusk, and so it went. During the four days of the conference it continued to grow. It had started with about 250 people representing four villages (already impressive in that feuding region). It grew to over 450 people with over 20 villages represented from all over the region. They were saying that they wanted to put their violent way of life behind them, stop practicing witchcraft and follow God. They wanted the missionaries back.
They wanted Bible translation (a surprising number had learned to read in recent years).
Our church leaders were scrambling, sharing the gospel through the formal trade language, teaching and answering questions. They went straight through the first night without sleep. The second day and night they still kept going, barely able to stand. People [from "Jarix"] were giving testimonies throughout the second night of how they had once heard the gospel and now wanted to follow "God's trail". Others like an old woman named Yolanda said they had "taken up God's talk" way back when [the original missionaries] first taught it and she had been faithfully following God's trail all these years. The third and fourth day groups were still trailing in from distant villages wanting to hear the talk. Many wanted to be baptized. Our church leaders were desperately trying to evaluate the level of understanding and sincerity before giving individuals the OK. The teaching continued right up until the last church leader climbed into the plane for the last flight out of that tiny grass air strip. In the end there had been 162 baptized.
When [missionary "J"] stepped off the returning plane and gave me the rundown ending with 162 baptized, I was flabbergasted. I did not know how to take it. They could not possibly know what it was all about, but ["J'] assured us they did. They knew the message and were sincere. For those who know [this native culture] and their traditional parties here is a hint at their sincerity. The leaders reported that there was no impropriety, no fighting, no shamanism, and most telling, no drink and hardly any food (the fields planted for the conference had matured too early and played out weeks before and every one had known that before hand. Our church leaders were strikingly skinnier after just four days.) The people had not come for a free party. They had come to hear God's word.
The conference ended with new believers heading back to their distant villages with only a pitiful handful of translated scripture and 4 solar powered Bible recordings to divide among the 450 participants. Over a hundred new believers, like children, walked nearly empty handed out into the dark jungle filled with spiritual snakes and jaguars, but they walk with a new light shining bright. Pray for them! Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workmen to teach them. Pray for us to know how to help.
Pray that it will be legally allowed. The region is, for the most part,
closed to missions now.
from the Jungle satellite up-link,
