A couple of days ago we had a visit from a man who hiked for about two hours to see us. Chris and Nate had interacted with him on several occasions, and Chris had gone to see him in his home village before and talked about what it is we’re here to do. Well, this time he brought with him his wife, his two sisters-in-law, and a notebook with about 10 questions that he had written down to ask us. The questions included: “After God made Adam and Eve, he went back up to heaven. Where is heaven?” “Did God make man out of real dust, or is that just a word picture?” “What were the words that God said in order to create everything?” “Why is it that even though we all say different power words, and each of us thinks only he has the rights words, our banana trees all grow just the same way?”
Needless to say, we were blown away by being slapped in the face with evidence that this guy is questioning his worldview. And not just him, but the women he brought with him. I couldn’t even engage them in conversation because they were hanging on Chris’ every word, hoping he would tell them all the answers. It was the first time since we moved here that someone just nodded and smiled vaguely at me because their attention was totally engaged elsewhere!
Well, Chris assured them that God had answered all their questions already and that they were written in the Bible, and that we are all working hard to get everything translated and ready to teach them. We told him that we were hesitant to answer his questions now without giving him the chance to hear all of what God has to say – from the beginning – so that he has a foundation on which to build a new worldview. Unfortunately, this guy is from a village so far away that we aren’t able to include them in this first round of teaching coming up in the summer. We want to get there, but the Pal people live so spread out that we simply can’t teach all of them at once. We told him he’s welcome to come and live around here and get his answers when the time for teaching comes, but that if he comes it’s important for him to come to the whole teaching – not just bits and pieces. Either that, or wait until we can team up with believers from here and do an outreach in his village.
Our welcome in Pal has always been warm, and for the most part people are interested and excited about our work. Some of them have invested heavily in it by coming to help us write lessons or work on translation. And even here in our little corner of Pal, we have to decide how to reach people spread out over a few square miles of jungle without exhausting ourselves (or them). And we have to decide soon. Please pray that we would be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, who always knows exactly what is best, and make decisions in unity with our team and with the Pal people as we seek to reach as many as possible when we start teaching this summer. And please pray for others to follow our young visitor’s example and crave the answers that only God’s Word can give.