Endless Seed Supply

We got off the paved road after four hours and then continued on a red dusty road for eight hours until I was convinced no human beings lived this far off the beaten path. Now you understand why I haven’t posted a blog in over a month. But here, in this remote, isolated area along a dried up river bed in East Africa, live a nomadic people group that one hundred years ago was entirely converted to Islam. Now it’s time for this tribe know Jesus Christ. 

Africa Inland Mission (AIM) began with the strategy to take the gospel into the interior regions of Africa and create a barrier to stop the spread of Islam from the northern parts of Africa as it swept south. AIM stays true to this mission today, still targeting unreached and Muslim people groups. Although many countries in East Africa are technically evangelized or “christianized”, Islam has recently been creeping back in. 

I was very privileged to partner with AIM this month and visit a missionary team who has been laboring over 30 years for this nomadic Muslim “O” people group along the river bed. Despite years of persecution, rejection, threats and seemingly little fruit, they have persevered. Why not shake the dust off their feet and move on? Because they have a deep sense of a calling and a confident “knowing hope” that the gospel will penetrate the hearts of the O people. Jesus’ blood paid for the sins of this tribe, and he is worthy to receive what he already paid for - the worship of the O people. 

Some tribes may take only two years to see people turn to Jesus, other tribes may take fifty years. Who is willing to labor fifty years and spend their whole life for the sake of the gospel? Lord, I hope you find me worthy of this calling. 

The missionary team among the O people share the gospel like it’s an endless supply of seed, spreading it everywhere. The parable of the sower has a whole new meaning to me as I watched them share the gospel with everyone they met on a daily basis, weaving Christ and his message into even the most ordinary conversations. 

First it was the Uber driver in the capital city. In the very first day I met our missionary hostess, she sat in the front seat next to the Uber driver and said, “You’re sitting in the car with four women who love Jesus. Do you know Jesus?” 

In the same manner, the patients we saw in the village clinic as well as the people who just showed up at the front door of the house heard about Jesus all throughout the two weeks that I was with the missionary couple. I am quite certain that every person who knows them has heard the gospel from them. 

I don’t know anyone else I can say that about. Certainly not myself. 

It was joyfully contagious! Just from watching them, I found myself catching on, which led to much more freedom and boldness in talking to anyone and everyone about Jesus and what he has done for us. Several times when the missionary wife, who is a fellow nurse, was busy with another patient, she would delegate to me (just like it was a nursing task) to sit down and share with a certain patient about Jesus. “She’s already had her antibiotic injection for the day. Now she needs to hear about Jesus.” 

We had a couple of students (one pre-med and one nursing) who enjoyed getting the extra medical experiences. But as they took turns giving injections and checking blood pressures, they took turns sharing the gospel regularly. Our clinic days and really all daily activities were saturated with gospel sharing like this. 

Wouldn’t it be amazing if the church all over the world caught this contagious energy for sharing the gospel? Wait a second, this is how the first century disciples lived and how we as followers of Jesus are still commanded to live! 

I’ve been recently struck by my New Testament study of Scripture and how little the church or my own life looks like what I actually read about. But there, in the most remote tribe in the middle of the African desert, I got a glimpse of what it looks like to follow Jesus like a New Testament disciple: The bold proclamation of the message accompanied by miraculous signs and wonders. Where some believe and many oppose. Where persecution and suffering are realities. 

Only one thing lacks: the rapid multiplication of the church. There are still only a handful of O believers, but the stage is set and the field is ripe. The missionary team among the O people see a readiness that they haven’t seen before, and they believe everything is in place for a church planting movement to begin. That’s why they keep sowing the gospel seed everywhere they go and pray that the enemy’s birds won’t snatch it away. 

Join me in praying for a breakthrough for the O people, that Jesus would finally receive the reward of his sufferings through the true worship of the O people. 

Pray for the barriers to be destroyed, strongholds smashed, and chains broken that are keeping the O people from belief in Jesus. 

Pray for Holy Spirit strength for missionaries, and for increased blondness and creativity in sharing the gospel. 

Pray for the faithful few O believers to recognize their importance in the kingdom of God in its earliest stages among the O people. 

Pray for you and me, that we could boldly proclaim the gospel and inspire others to do the same. 

And pray for me, that God would make it abundantly clear if he is calling me to join this work.