We all know a simple, straight forward ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to a difficult question can sometimes be the hardest thing to get out. And it was that way when God used a very reluctant ‘yes’ to keep the way open for the light of His Good News to shine in the dark jungles of the country of these posts.
The six month permits under which the missionaries had been working were cumbersome and impractical due to the difficulties encountered in travel and communication. On August 4th of 1953 a permit with an indefinite expiration date was granted, but revocable at any time with three months notice. The work continued on under that permit for over fifty years till it was revoked in 2005. Here is the shortened version of that miracle.
My father and another missionary were in the capital city working on a permit which would give the missionaries more time to actually stay in the jungle villages for more than a few months at a time. They were staying in a cramped little room at a no frills boarding house in the downtown area. The days, weeks and months had been dragging on with limited progress. They were down to eating one square a day because that’s all they could afford.
When they weren’t pounding the streets going from office to office they were on their knees in their little room pouring out their hearts to God for a breakthrough. The Spiritual implications of their quest was vividly real to them. My father said as they prayed, at times it seemed the room was full of demons, mocking and laughing at them saying things like “you’ll never get that permit” and “those jungle people are ours”. The battle indeed must have been very real and very hard because I don’t remember my father describing a spiritual battle in those terms very often.
In the final analysis everything depended on a report the Minister of Justice would receive from an entity directly under his authority called “The Indian Commission” The granting of the permit would turn on a simple yes or no, unanimous, answer to the following question; “Has the work of the missionaries been beneficial to the Indians”? The man running the Indian Commission, whose title was ‘technical advisor’ had carefully studied the reports my Father had been handing in on the missionaries activities which included medical work, literacy programs and language analysis. He also studied independent accounts from various official expeditions into the largely unknown jungle areas who had to their surprise found missionaries out in the furtherest reaches of the navigable streams. The missionaries had been of invaluable help in the success of these expeditions. The technical advisor was a fair man and presented all the accumulated information to the other members of the commission.
As the time of discussion came to an end the members were reminded that the answer was to be a straight forward, yes or no and it was to be unanimous. Every member with the exception of one said ‘yes’. That one member who was one of the most important and influential, said “yes but” and was not about to be persuaded by the technical advisor’s reminder of the minister’s very specific instructions. This man’s importance can’t be overstated and he probably thought he could deny the missionaries their permit by virtue of the fact the minister himself would likely cave in. So Mr. technical advisor handed in his report saying ‘here’s the report but it’s not what you wanted’. The minister was not happy and sent the commission back to do it all over again. This time around the ‘yes but’ man gave a very, very reluctant, plain and simple ‘yes’ answer. From the very beginning the evidence was overwhelming in favor of granting the permit but this man had a deep resentment against the presence of the missionaries no matter how much good they were doing.
After the permit had been granted a representative from another mission told my father he had not even prayed for it’s granting because he had been so sure it would be turned down. He knew there wasn’t the slightest chance it could happen and indeed there wasn’t. But God had a different perspective, God knew the answer was going to be YES and that it was going to be UNANIMOUS.
Let me share a line from a couple of hymns those early missionaries sang with commitment, determination and passion. A.B. Simpson-M. M. Simpson. “To the regions beyond I must go, I must go, where the story has never been told, to the millions that never have heard of His love, I must tell the sweet story of old”. Oscar Eliason. “Got any rivers you think are uncrossable, got any mountains you can’t tunnel thru? God specializes in things thought impossible; He does the things others can-not do”. It was God’s good timing that those jungle peoples living in that “region beyond” hear “the sweet story of old” and God used the faith, prayers and efforts of those missionary pioneers in that jungle to bring the story to where it “had never been told”.
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