November 2007, SE Asia
“I being in the way, the Lord led me.” Genesis 24:27
In 2007 we received a request from a missionary in a restricted access country to help him to continue ministering there. This man had “inherited” the ministry of another missionary who was retiring because of ill health. This older missionary had a tremendous love for the national people and had established a foundation to benefit them. He had such a good reputation that even after the “Officials” were in power, the foundation was still allowed to operate, even though it was a Christian based foundation. The foundation raised money to fund projects such as donations of medical equipment and supplies for local health centers and providing for preschools to be built for tribal children so they might learn the language of the country before attending the government run public schools.
The younger missionary, Sam, was required to provide a certain amount of projects each year to keep his visa and remain in the country. Someone had suggested that our ministry might qualify as a helpful project to better the welfare of the people. So he contacted us and requested that we come and provide dental care for these national people. We all agreed that it very well might lead to opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in this tightly controlled country.
So we packed our bags to go, knowing little of the country we were traveling to and having never met this missionary before. We only knew that this man needed our help to continue his ministry in this country and we were in a position to help. There was just one small problem, Jennifer was sick when it was time to go. The doctor reluctantly gave a prescription for a Z-pak (azithromycin) in case she didn’t improve. It was a long grueling trip to the other side of the world and the bad cough that had taken up residence in her lungs had no plans of leaving.
We met our missionary host at the airport, after arriving and collecting our luggage. As we hailed a taxi, our friend quickly acquainted us with the danger of talking freely in public and went through a code that he had come up with to use in non-secure places, like taxis. He said that when talking of spiritual things we would refer to God as the manager, the church was the company, missionaries were employees and Christians he just called Cs, and it went on and on. It was very clever but a little intricate and we were thoroughly exhausted, jet lagged and culture shocked. Unfortunately, there were a few goof ups that led to lots of anxiety because taxi drivers could also be informants.
We were finally settled in our modest hotel after having to hand over our passports at the desk. This is standard operating procedure in some restricted access countries and although we have had to do it many times, we still don’t like it. We also had to be careful in our room in case there were listening devices. We slept for twelve hours straight. After we awoke, we got cleaned up and listened to a Bible message on our computer and it comforted our hearts as we were feeling far from home and in a very strange place.
We weren’t exactly sure how things were going to work as we knew little about where we were to serve and how things would go. We have since learned that when we are in this kind of a situation God has His plan and He will work out the details. We just need to show up and He will arrange the opportunities for the gospel to go forth.
We left the next day from the capital city to travel eight hours north to a mountainous region where we were to work. We rode a commercial bus and had a lot of time to see the countryside and the extreme poverty of the people. So many were bent over, standing in knee deep water, planting rice. It was getting colder as the elevation was getting higher and we hoped that they had warm homes to go to after work. We thought about the church service we had attended the day before in the state approved church in the city. It was a gospel preaching church but the gospel could only be preached inside the church building. Any preaching elsewhere would result in imprisonment of the pastor or whoever else was caught. At the service a group of Americans had asked to give a welcome to the church but one of the men ended up giving lengthy testimony. Sam told us that the pastor could be arrested and put in prison for what had just happened because it was highly illegal for the pastor to allow someone else to “preach” in the church without permission from the government. There were frequently spies who sat in on the church services to hear what was being preached. We prayed for that poor pastor who had been put at risk unintentionally.
It was a long day of travel on the bus and Jennifer’s cough was getting worse. There hadn’t been a lot of rest since we had arrived in the country. We finally reached our destination which was a quaint town in the mountains that had been a resort area for the Europeans who formally controlled the country in colonial days.
We would be starting to work the next morning. Our assignment was to treat school children in one of the government run schools. We frowned, thinking there might not be much of an opportunity to witness, but there would be the opportunity to gently treat a lot of frightened children. We knew it was going to be busy and the decision was made to start Jennifer on the antibiotic the doctor had prescribed so she could begin to get well and not infect the children.
We often say to each other that “the first day is always the hardest!” It is a reminder that even though things are often chaotic in the beginning, they usually settle into a routine that is much easier. This first day was not only hard it was a nightmare! As we arrived and began to unpack our equipment the principal informed us that there were 500+ students in the school and that he expected all of them to be seen in the morning because they had important school work to attend to in the afternoon. We stared at him but he was dead serious. We told him we would do what we could; what we didn’t tell him was that, that was not going to be happening!
Next we set up our equipment and supplies under the super watchful eye of the Officials who had been assigned to watch us and transport us. One of them took it upon himself to switch the current on the transformer from 220 to 110, causing the coils in our sterilizer to overheat and the paper bags containing instruments to catch on fire. Soon flames and smoke were billowing out of the sterilizer. Thankfully we got it put out before it ruined the sterilizer.
As we waited for a group of children to arrive for treatment, Jennifer wasn’t feeling well. Asking to use the restroom, she found that she had to be escorted as she was not allowed to go anywhere by herself. She was feeling desperately sick but had to walk slowly with the matron who slowly unlocked the door. It was sheer torture when she knew she was going to be horribly sick. But after a minute or so, the matron knocked on the door to signal that her time was up and she needed to return to work. Back at the clinic, the process of trips to the restroom had to be repeated over and over again at the same measured pace. It was crazy!
It soon became clear that Jennifer was not going to be able to work. The antibiotic was very strong and had put her out of commission. The Officials went to a nearby health center and came back with a young lab tech who worked there to take her place. Jack took a walk outside to pray and was quickly asked what he was doing. He said he needed to talk to God about the situation but he was told to return to the dental office. Our missionary co-worker was discouraged as there was such tight control over us that there were no opportunities to share about Jesus with anyone.
The lab tech turned out to be a great help and at least the dental work began to go smoothly. Jennifer was able to sleep a little in the van while the students were treated. Soon it was lunch time and our government handlers took us to a small health center to have some lunch. We rode on the backs of their motorcycles in the rain. They gave us some tea and rice and then we were to rest in separate rooms. It was all so strange but it was about to get a lot stranger!
Jennifer had just laid down on a cot in a treatment room when a man burst into the room screaming in the local language. He obviously wanted something very badly but not knowing the language, she had no idea what! Then he ran out. The local man had brought a girl with him who was very ill and it was determined that she had swallowed poison in a suicide attempt. Jack and our missionary co-worker, Sam, were pushed into the service of holding her down while the doctor tried to put a rubber tube down her throat to pump her stomach. At that moment an older man ran into the room brandishing a large knife! None of us had any idea what was even happening as he was screaming too and everyone backed away while he took the girl with him. Our coworker thought she was trying to escape an abusive marriage but he wasn’t sure.
As they went off, the Officials said lunch was over and it was time to go back to work! There was no explanation of what had just happened.
In the afternoon, Jennifer was better but we decided to let the lab tech continue being the dental assistant as he was really enjoying it. He came for a few more days and it was for the best as there was more antibiotic to take to get rid of the lung infection. That afternoon we were left alone for a little while and the lab tech told Sam that he was a Christian too and his father was a house church pastor in that area. Sam told him how frustrated we were to be so closely watched because we had had no opportunity to speak to anyone about the Lord. We gave him a large stack of tracts that we had been able to bring with us into the country that were written in the local language. The lab tech’s face lit up! “These are like gold!” he said, “We can’t get anything like this here!” “Don’t be concerned about not being able to speak to the people. After you have gone, we will tell everyone why you came.”
It had been a difficult, confusing and stressful first day but the Lord had a plan in it all! The people in the area would be reached by someone who spoke their language and by someone they already knew and trusted. If Jennifer hadn’t gotten so sick, we would never have met the lab tech and would not have been able to provide him with the materials he needed for ministry. God’s wisdom is unsearchable!