This month we are staying in Northeast India in a state called Manipur. The people here are not like the Indians I have met previously. The culture is different, the food is different, the people look different. The terrain is different; it is fairly jungle-like here, lots of hills, and water, and trees. It is still very green despite being winter (the dry season). There are so many differences, but the one thing that is constant is God. The Lord we serve is the same one they serve! Jesus is the only way and that is what they are teaching only in another language! How neat is that!?
God is already here! Going into month one, India, I thought I would be spreading the gospel and talking to people who believed something totally different than me. That is not the case here. God lead us into a place where these people already knew Him! Where my faith could be sharpened and my eyes could be opened to what one missionary can do.
Over 100 years ago, one missionary felt called by God to come into this land, with the Gospel, to a people who were known as head-hunters… Umm scary! But he went and he met 5 chiefs of tribes living in the area and shared the Gospel with them, and they became believers! The son of one of the chiefs is the man we are staying with, who went to college at Wheaton in Illinois with the help of Billy Graham in order to translate the Gospel into his own language. We are staying at his house and his son has now taken over the ministry. They have a seminary, a school, a hospital, a church, and many other connections in the village and the surrounding villages to evangelize to the people who live here. It is so cool to see a whole village that is Christ-centered. There are signs everywhere with Bible verses on them, and windows in the shape of the cross. Do you think the missionary who was called to these people by God 100 years ago could have ever fathomed that this would be the fruit of that obedience?
You never know what is going to happen when you are being obedient to the One who sent you. I will never see all the fruit that will come from my obedience to come on the World Race, but I do know I serve a God that can do anything, so I trust Him and continue to follow His lead and I know there will be fruit that He will one day get to harvest.
