Hi team, We Have written lots of email recently about the work and the challenges we face here living amongst a tribal people. During this time we have been working together (you all and us as a family) through prayer to ask the Lord for his perspective to rule and for His strength and help. What we haven’t done is written informing you of how we are experiencing and coping with all of that. So I thought as we are getting to the end of our first four month stretch here amongst the Mengen people and are due for a break, it would be a good exercise for you as well as us. I find it good practice to take stock, to evaluate ourselves and our thinking and be honest with our God and each other about who we are and meditate on what God might be doing. In short over these four months we have felt that our normal life has been turned on its head; the boundaries and social cues that we know, understand, observe and live by are obsolete. We are outsiders, who are shown little grace and understanding from the community at large. We have experienced violence, threats, and slander; we have been told our homes will be chopped down, that people will kill us and we regularly feel cheated and taken advantage of. We have often been sick over these months and have had many sleepless nights. We have found our limits being challenged, with thoughts like these rumbling beneath the surface – living under these threats is not normal / if we weren’t here we wouldn’t be this sick continually / if she has another seizure we have no immediate help – that’s not responsible parenting / I refuse to be taken advantage of and cheated anymore. We want to tell you that we are just normal people who are vulnerable and whose strength runs out; we are no different than anyone else. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian struggling to follow Christ in the midst of Nazi rule , penned a wonderful book, aptly named “The cost of discipleship”. The theme of the book is summed up in a sentence that Bonheoffer wrote “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”. I wonder what Annika and I expected those few years ago in missions training? What did we really expect when we sat in that church commissioning service and listened to that sermon on Luke 9; The first guy said “I will follow you wherever you go” and Christ replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head”. The second man told Jesus that His father had just died, Jesus replied, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God”. The third would follow Jesus wherever he wanted to go, but he wanted to say goodbye to his family first, Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God”. Do we expect to hear from Christ that it may be normal to become homeless or feel very far away from home; that Christ must take priority over family and time with them. It is one thing to read or hear about the cost of discipleship and it is another to start to experience a little of what it means. Jesus has always said that following Him will mean abandoning the things we hold dear in this life; consider the rich young man (Mark 10), He came running to Jesus feet, bowed and asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus reply is probably very different from what we would tell a young man who approached us in this way; “Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Yet the commitment that Jesus asks for in the life of the rich young man is at the center of Jesus’ invitation throughout the gospels. The simple call in Matthew 4, “come and follow me”, had radical implications for Jesus’ disciples. Abandon comforts, possessions and move from the familiar to the unfamiliar, leave family and friends, exchange certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger. They followed a teacher who told them to crucify themselves; history tells us the result – the cost for them was great. We have found in these months that the things we are having to do without; health care, security, privacy, fairness etc have asked questions of our commitment to Christ and have shaken us in a good way. We know many of you are in the same boat and so we hope that sharing these struggles will encourage you. The cost of not following Christ is too great! Our God wants to see His church in this place grow and mature and reach the other 12,000 or so people who have yet to hear. So the cost of not following our Savior is great; it is great for the lost of the world and the lost of the Mengen people who offer sacrifices day in and day out because no one has told them that Jesus has already offered Himself once and for all – the final sacrifice! As a result they live without Christ, and if nothing changes they will die without Him. Did you catch the last part of what Christ said to the rich young man? He told him to go and sell everything that you have – “and you will have treasure in heaven!” Jesus wants the best for us, He is not trying to strip us of contentment and riches. But rather He is offering the satisfaction of eternal treasure. We see the same thing in Matthew 13 , “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field”. In following Christ as disciples we are not really exchanging comforts for discomfort, giving away possessions, moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar, leaving family and friends, exchange certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger. We are not really giving anything away, but we are gaining more than we ever could on our own. When we truly know Jesus we will give it all away because we know we have found something worth losing everything else for. These challenges instead of driving us away from our Savior have in fact drawn us closer. This time has made us examine our hearts and realize that the source of discomfort or worry has less to do with our location and situation but more to do with our hearts not being in tune with Gods perspective. God has us in His hand in this place to help us grow and reflect more effectively on His Son; He would have us be more like Jesus. This is not always an easy process, it is often very uncomfortable but we are convinced it is worth it. God has been graciously reminding us that we must face a striking reality. We do have to give up everything to follow Christ. We do have to love Him in a way that may make our closest relationships look a lot like hate. And it is very possible that he may ask us for more than we would freely give. You definitely do not have to be on the mission field to experience these realities, we know so many of you who are in a similar place just now. Let’s remember to encourage each other with the fact that the securities and comforts of this world are just dirt, compared with the treasure we can find in our Savior.
Because of Him,
Simon, Annika, Nya and Noah