Sometimes, I think you just have to be there to feel it, missionaries living in the bush know, that cold lonely feeling that wraps around you when you watch the small mission plane fly away. It is just you and your family doing the best you can to keep the work together.
If you have never lived in a tribe alone you might not pick up on my thoughts here so let me explain. We have several missionaries as I speak that are working in a tribe without the help of another family. It is not what we have planned, but for various reason we find our team mates no longer with us and there is just so much work to be done.
With all the excitement about reaching new tribes, ones’ heart is naturally drawn that way. I think we all understand that thought, but it doesn’t lessen the need for those in an older unfinished work needing help. Again, being there gives more understanding and meaning to what I say.
What can we do or say that would open your heart to see the need of moving into an unfinished work and helping them finish the job of discipleship, the very thing we told the people we would do for them? With all the lack of discipleship even in some of our churches in the USA one would wonder if Matt. 28: 19 means much to us today.
We can not and must not birth a church and then not disciple it to maturity, this is nothing less than spiritual abortion. God give us men and women that love You, Your Word and Your church enough to give their lives to see this great work completed in our generation.
Paul Fleming the founder of New Tribes mission had these words to say. “God does not want to make one man big with a lot of blessings, but wants to bless a lot of little men by using their lives.” We need men and women,” little “in their own eyes, to help us finish this work here in PNG. Could God entrust you with being a part of this great task? Thank you for giving it some thought.
Jack Housley,
Member Care PNG.