And all God's People said.....

Sunday morning I was moved to tears by the missionaries who came to speak about their mission to the northwest part of Ontario where they plan to move and minister to the First Nations people. These two young guys plan on moving their families, both with one child each so far, to basically the Arctic!  I thought it was cold here.  I don't know cold.  At the end of their presentation, they showed a video they had put together of one of their trips there.   Images, real images, of where they were going, suddenly showed the true state of these lost people - a place of desperate need.

The statistics of the First Nations are awful.  100% of the girls are abused.  No one has hope.  No one has a reason for living.  Years and years ago the government of Canada thought it would be a good idea to build these residential schools which  stole the children from their parents as early as 3.  They were then assimilated into the Canadian culture and supposedly educated, sometimes being separated from their parents as long as a decade.  While there more abuse went on.  When they got back from the schools, they could no longer communicate in the same language as their parents.  What was the government thinking?????  Who came up with this awful idea???  Part of the video was showing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, apologizing to the First Nations for what the government had done. That in itself was moving.

What really got me was when they showed how they had met up with a new believer when they had first gotten there.  He had taken them out fishing and shared what it was like living there, some of his struggles as a new believer, how his marriage was suffering.  They were able to pull the boat over, due to a storm coming, and pray for this man.  This one experience they had was enough to confirm their call.  These people are ignored.  Churches exist up there, but no one attends!  They have travelling salesmen-type preachers, but no one stays!  These couples that are going are planning to stay, to live there, to be among them.

It struck my husband and me how similar their experience is to what it must have been like to meet Jim Elliot and Nate Saint.  We felt we met them on Sunday.  The irony is, these two men who spoke first found out about this need for missionaries in the north through the very man who pulled Jim Elliot's body, and the other missionaries who died in Ecuador, out of the river.  His name is Frank Drown.  He went up in his retirement to northern Canada and did some fishing.  He found out about these lost people, just like the tribes in Ecuador, where no one was going.  In a funny way, they are just like the cannibals of Ecuador, but instead of killing other tribes, they kill themselves - very high suicide rates because of the lack of hope and purpose in their lives.  Very high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, violence....all because they have never heard the name Jesus.

After Frank Drown found out about these people, he decided he could never retire and told someone, "I can't die until I know someone is going to take over and go to these people."  Meanwhile, these young couples were praying about where God wanted them to go.  It all led to this remote community in the north.

Just to keep things all in perspective, when the missionaries were done speaking, the pastor went up and prayed a beautiful benediction tying everything together.  He closed with, "And all God's people said.....?"  My two year old jumped in and at the exact same time when everyone was saying, "Amen", he yelled out, "Can I have a cookie?"  Isn't that what all God's people want?!  He was just answering the pastor's question - what do God's people say?  It seemed like a good answer, all God's people say, "Can I have a cookie?"  That's what the two year thinks.  So good to be brought back down to Earth, isn't it?

But then I thought about it...Maybe that is what people want.  They sit there listening to a missionary, but the truth is their stomach is grumbling and they just want lunch.  The truth is, what do God's people say after they've seen and heard real needs from other believers? Perhaps we say, "Amen", but inside we're more like the two year old, "Can I have a cookie?"  When the pastor asks that question, he's looking for agreement, for some out loud sign that we are listening to God's call on us as a congregation.

I think it would be awful if we didn't do something or at the very least send money and commit to praying for these amazing servants of God.  God's people just want a cookie! Most of us just enjoy hearing the neat stories and then we go home to roast beef and, uh, cookies!  I asked myself when I was feeling the emotions I was when they talked, "Why the tears?"  Was I being manipulated by these missionaries to feel these feelings?  I realized that wasn't the case at all - I was being moved because I knew what they were saying was true.  Truth was what was moving me.  The fact these people have no hope.  Someone asked them if they had ever heard the name Jesus.  They hadn't.  I don't just want a cookie!  I want to say, "Amen!" which is a real, tangible way of being a part of these people hearing about Christ.  When we say, "Amen" together - it means, "We agree!" We want to partner with you!  Then, a crazy idea came into my head.  I'm tentative about writing it, but I'm going to anyway.  

The missionaries started to talk about raising funds now and how they hope to go this summer and build a place to live as there is nothing for them to go to.  Crazy thought enters my head.  After they finished speaking, I immediately went up to my husband who had been leading worship with my daughter that morning, wiped my tears - I could barely keep it together - and I said, "I think you need to go build their house."  He said, "It's funny you say that....."  He'd been thinking the same thing.

Now, nothing is certain, of course, but we're praying and asking the Lord to develop a team which would include our oldest boys.  My husband certainly has the skills and would be a fantastic general contractor.  He's lived up in the coldest parts of Canada for most of his life and even put in an ice rink, if you can believe it, in Nunavut, so he knows what's involved in building in these kinds of places.  Perhaps God will use someone else.  He just wants people that are willing to go.  It doesn't make sense financially, of course.  Mission trips never make sense financially as most missionaries have no money.  It means God will have to move and make Himself very clear.  We don't want to be ahead of Him in anyway.  But it would sure be an amazing way of saying "Amen", not just "I want a cookie!"

Paul Washer once said, "You are either in the well or holding the rope" when he spoke of missions and missionaries.  He was saying, "You are either on the field or supplying their financial needs so they can go. "  I've never forgotten that statement.  Either way, we better all be in missions in some way.  It's a command.

On a completely different note, our house is still here, on planet Earth, that is.  We were pretty sure we were going to be blown away several times last night.  The winds were so high, the highest yet, they say, since we moved here.  We never rake our leaves.  Don't have to.  God's "leaf blower" is much more effective.  We tied down our trampoline this time.  We learned from one of the last windstorms....it ended up in a tree!  Don't know about the animals yet....hopefully none of them were blown away!  Living here is quite the challenge, from the wind, to the cold - it's a bizarre place of extremes.  Nothing like what the missionaries will be experiencing, of course - that helps me see my complaints are pathetic.  I don't have to fly my supplies in once a year.  I'm five minutes from a store.  I think I'll be able to take my little wind storm.

Well, as usual, gotta run....time to wake the troops!