This morning I read this update from a couple living in a village in Papua New Guinea, Jason and Niase Williamson. Below is just the first part of their update, the part I believe will challenges any Christian from any country. Locations may change, languages may be different, but God's truth is always the same. He is delighted when a believer faith grows in the jungles, in the cities, in the country and in any language group when they understand truth and act upon it. A group of 100 to thousands can hear the same truth but not many will act upon it. Any truth that calls us to humble ourselves is so out of our comfort zone.
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God will put a strong eye on me! (Jason speaking)
Many of you remember the instability we’ve had in our village over the past year and a half. After the death of a young boy in our village, allegations of witchcraft and sorcery began to surface, causing many of believing families to leave and reallocate 4-5 hours away. We as a team have wrestled with how to continue to disciple these people now that they are not full time with us.As we thought through this, we saw that this could be a great training tool for discipling our Bible teachers. So, over the last few months my co-worker and I have taken turns traveling down with our Bible teachers for a week at a time and teaching this little ‘satellite’ church.
Now, keep in mind that these Bible teachers who are going down and teaching with us are from the clan that the people from this village accused of sorcery. One of those Bible teachers, Ludwig, had many of his cocoa trees & yam gardens cut down by these people and they even burned down one of his houses. For months Ludwig struggled with the prospect of having to go down and teach the believers whose unbelieving families had caused so much trouble for him. After equating his situation to the early apostles, he said, “The apostles didn’t just go to people who didn’t give them trouble. They went to hard places as well, knowing that they would face persecution. God is calling me to the do the same. If God wants me to do it, he will look after me. I can leave it in his hands. I will do it.” Pretty cool to see this man struggle and then leave the outcome in the Lord’s hands. The story’s not over yet. We came to the rotation when it was his turn among others to go down with me to the village for a week. We received a very encouraging welcome from most of the believers. However, one man who professes to be a believer, has caused many problems for the church. He refused to come because Ludwig had come with us to teach. The Bible teachers wanted to get this man and have a meeting with him to fix this, however we decided to only pray about it and leave this man in God’s hands. At the end of the week this man came to the last meeting and afterwards he came crying and hugged Ludwig and apologized to him. Afterwards on the hike back to our village, our Bible teachers all remarked about having just seen the power of God to convict and to bring about repentance. Ludwig turned around and looked at me and said, “Jason, this week I have seen the power of God clearly. Now I know that when I serve the Lord, nothing can stop his power. It is true, when I serve the Lord, He is going to put a strong eye on me (look after me)!”
Do you believe God will keep a strong eye on you? If so, then you can walk into any situation with courage and peace and love in your heart.
