Have you ever thought about the spiritual battles that missionaries face when ministering in primitive locations to tribal people groups? Or, even the threat of physical harm?
Spiritual battles and physical harm were no strangers to itinerant missionary Sophie Mueller in the 1950’s as she traveled from village to village nestled along the banks of the tributaries in the upper Amazon River basin. Sophie would arrive in a village and tell the people that she was sent from the God of Creation to teach them the way to heaven. Some listened but many were skeptical.
One such man thought, ‘Well, if Sophie really was sent here by God, then she will not die if I feed her poison.’ Wanting to make sure his ‘test’ was certain to be ‘supernatural’ he put enough poison into her food to kill 5 men!
That night after Sophie ate a portion of the poisoned food, she became ill and vomited. Not wanting to offend the giver of the food, she put the rest into a gourd, quietly set it outside for the animals, and went to bed.
The next morning the man found his rooster dead beside the gourd of partially eaten food, but Sophie was alive and ready to begin the teaching. He thought, ‘If her God is powerful enough to save her from the poison then I need to listen to her teaching’. That man did believe in God’s Salvation through Jesus Christ and he later became a church leader among the Baniua people of Brazil.