It was not yesterday, it was 1977, but at times facts from the past stimulate my mind until it seems it was just yesterday. We were living in our little bush house located in the upper Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. This was a place Janie and I will never forget in our life time.
We would tuck our four boys in for the night then Janie and I would lay down covered only with the hot humid sticky night. As always we would pray for rain to give coolness from the heat and to fill the four 44 gallon drums that was our only means of drinking water. At times God would answer with rain that very night but at times He would wait days testing our faith to the limits.
We would lay silent; straining our ears for the sound of the distant roar that let us know a rain was coming up out of the Sepik plains. Lighting would flash and thunder would roll over the mountain behind our house. Then the rain would come, filling our drums and go, riding on the restless wind, losing its self in the Sepik basin miles away. But that was yesterday and yesterday is gone.
Some might ask, why I think so much of the past. The mighty thing God has done in the past in our lives is the fuel that drives us in the future to go with the gospel message. The same faith that filled our hearts in the past continues to fill our hearts with joy today as we look for faithful men and women to walk the same path we once walked in the regions beyond by giving their lives.
The book of James asks the question, “What is your life?” Then he tells us with these words, “It is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” May we take that little time and use it for the glory of God, the one that said go. Pray with us asking God to open doors for us to find those faithful that will say, “Here I am send me.”