During this past February, we were blessed by a young man named Zach. Zach is currently visiting the Philippines for several months through another organisation to expose himself to the many aspects of missionary work. Although we didn’t personally know him, we were approached about the idea of allowing him to visit us for a few weeks to see what missions is about from the tribal missionary perspective. Of course we said yes!
During his time with us, we tried to give Zach a wide variety of opportunities to experience life with us. He sat in on my language helper sessions, visited with the local people both in our village and the neighbouring one, and even got a taste of birthday food tribal style. Of course I had to give him opportunity to do a little work around the house as well.
One of the things that stood out to me though was the amount of time he spent simply playing with and talking to our kids. In some ways it was like Zach fit right in with us, whether he was playing peek a boo with Jenna, piggy-backing Sophia or building a fort with Kyle.
It was a good reminder to me as to the importance of our kids in our ministry amongst the Ga’dang people. They can see the relationships we have with our children, and hopefully it’s a good example of how we (and they in the future) have a relationship with our heavenly father. It was also a reminder to me to not ignore the spiritual needs of our children as we minister here to the the tribal people.
Please continue to pray for us as we focus our efforts not only on the Ga’dang people but also on these little ones in our family. Their spiritual well being is just as important, if not more so.