I remember praying, during my training, almost 6 years ago, that the Holy Spirit would go ahead of me and prepare the soil – the hearts – of those to whom I would be sent. But I could not have imagined how fertile that soil would be! In fact, as I look back over these first 4 years amongst them, it seems as though that soil had already been completely prepared.
To put it in their own “farming” terms, the plot of jungle had already been carefully chosen and marked. The undergrowth had been cleared, and later the large trees felled with the hard help of many, all working with axes. After drying for a few months in the scorching sun it had been thoroughly burned, and what remained had been gathered into black piles of charred branches to be burned again. And finally with the help of many the ground had been dug up into a field of little holes waiting for the “seeds” to be spread and planted.
As I joined the team that is precisely the way I found them! We had been invited to live amongst them with the express purpose of translating the Scriptures into their heart felt language, and teaching them the same. Being trilingual, they read the Bible in three different languages skipping back and forth between them, trying to understand and make sense of it all. Blazing ahead, with an incredible thirst to understand, they set up their own church complete with leaders and pastors.
It is in this context that I began to see that I was becoming much more a witness of the Holy Spirit’s work and less of a church planter per se. In fact last year we were invited to participate in a translation course geared for preparing the indigenous to translate themselves. And now their dream of having the word of God in their own heart felt language is closer than ever!
“Impossible!” you might be thinking. Yeah, I know, I thought so too, especially since I was just then getting the orthography organized (their alphabet). But trust me, its not! In fact even as I type I am sitting at that very translation course with two Kaxuyana learning step by step all that goes into a splendid translation of the very Word of God.
As far as I am concerned it is history in the making. No! More than that, it is the very Kingdom of Heaven in the making and it is my privilege to be an eyewitness! So did the Lord answer my prayers for fertile soil? Yeah, I’d say so! And many of you have been and are a part of that!