Missions ii

One of the things that really inspire me is hearing life-transforming testimonies. And the ones that really get to me are the ones that are just so conceptually unbelievable but yet so amazingly true. Today, I heard of a story like that, and allow me to introduce him to you (due to the sensitivity of the topic, i have changed his name and any detail that could potentially disrupt his ministry).

Mark was a religious man, devout believer in a monotheistic religion in a country in Central Asia. He grew up in a very homogeneous religious environment; everyone he knew believed the same god as he did. Nothing changed until two missionaries from the United States transplanted in the same region of the country. These two missionaries, husband and wife, left everything behind to reach out to Mark's people group and his country. Through the missionaries, God opened the heart of Mark's uncle who came to believe that Jesus died to give him new life. Mark's uncle quickly shared the Good News with all his family members, including Mark. But Mark could not believe, and angrily argued with his uncle. "How could you believe such a false god?" he asked. But his uncle continued to share with him and prayed for him. Time passed, and one day, an angel of God appeared to Mark in a vision and told him about how Jesus came to die for him. Mark accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior that day and began to witness to his own people group. He was received with hostility, getting beaten and arrested a few times. The two missionaries later married Mark and his wife before getting kicked out of the country because of new laws that outlawed foreign missionary work in the country. Mark worried about the growth of the local Christian population with foreign missionaries, but God has been faithful to him and his people. Despite being closed to foreign missions work, the church continues to grow in the hardest areas of the country, where most people are fundamentally hostile to Christianity. Mark is here in America to learn advanced agricultural sciences so that he can take that knowledge back to his home country and develop the agricultural industry there and will gain a great platform to serve his people and build the local church.

As he shared his testimony, I could not help but recollect my experience in the villages of western China reaching out and sharing the Gospel to the locals. It was overwhelming to see just how much more work needed to be done in sharing the Gospel and how there was no viable local church to witness to their own people group. And I can't help but wonder, if China continues to crackdown on evangelization within its borders and decides to really kick out every foreign missionary, can the Gospel continue to slowly change the hearts of the ethnic minorities that we were reaching out to? But as evidenced in this man's testimony, even though his country kicked out missionaries, the local church continues to grow.

Our God is mighty to save, might to save indeed.