I have recently returned from a country that has been in civil war for 80 plus years. 90% of the country is Buddhist. As I write this, a major city in the central region of the country is under siege and could fall.
In mid-October five of us flew 8,000 miles into the former capital as couriers and to just be with them. In this case, it was the major request: “Will you come and hug my people, tell them that they are loved, and hear their stories? They need to know they have not been forgotten.” And so, we went.
Mid-week we were about three hours outside of the city and walked down a grassy lane. In the distance we heard many voices, singing. As we approached the bamboo Chapel, we realized that these 50 orphaned children were singing with grateful hearts… to us. They were welcoming us into their lives. As we walked in, their songs turned to praises to “The One True King, Jesus.” These children had lived in a northern province where their parents and family members had been killed indiscriminately. The family that welcomed them, welcomed these 50 children because no one else wanted them. They were being fed, educated, loved, and discipled. The goal was to send them back into the province that they came from. The province where their families were killed and their lives drastically altered. Why would they send them back? To show them that the Gospel is redemptive, and the Gospel is true life, and the Gospel is about loving your enemies. It is about forgiveness.
As we concluded our time with these children several of the teenaged boys carried a man into the room as if he were a king. It was their “adoptive” father. He could no longer walk because of liver cancer.
We asked him to recount his salvation story. He wept with such deep gratitude. He could not utter a word. His wife shared his story of moving to the province that these children came from in 1996. For the next two years he created an alphabet for these people. Then for 18 more years he translated the New Testament into their language. None of these 50 orphaned children were born yet. But in the remaining days of his life, he would get to see the fruit of his obedience lived out before his own eyes as they prepared these young people to go back into their homeland to propagate the Gospel in life and, quite possibly, in death.
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will
in no way be ashamed but will
have sufficient courage so that now
as always Christ will be exalted in my
body, whether by life or by death. For to
me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Philippians 1:20,21
