As soon as I mentioned the word “witch doctor,” the eyes of these Muslim men expanded to about twice their normal size – “we don’t mess with those people! Weren’t you scared of them? What did you do?” How did I end up sitting on the picnic blanket, talking about witch doctors and Jesus’ power with these Muslim Mosque leaders & community men? It started in middle school, when I was one of the ‘next generation’ just beginning my journey with Jesus.
When I gave my life to truly follow Jesus in middle school, for reasons that I can’t explain, I felt the clear call of God to cross-cultural work among unreached peoples almost immediately. At that young age, I was just crazy enough to raise my hand and force myself into awkward conversations with any foreign worker who was willing to give me the time of day. And let me tell you, God brought some incredible people into my life. The more I reflect on my journey, the more I am thankful and awestruck that men and women of God were willing to take a chance on me.
It makes me wonder: Would I have helped to pave a way for myself to the nations?
Those Who Paved The Way
Ben was willing to sacrifice time away from his new wife to chaperone me on my first trip to East Asia when I was 14.
William and Katie took a huge chance sending me solo as a 15-year-old to live and work overseas for a month before I would meet up with other US teams for the remainder of the summer.
William also showed up 2 years later in my parent’s garage to see a group of 35, nasty teenagers who were being saved out of Satanism, drug abuse, and gangs. The overseas work is what sparked the courage in me to start an organic church out of the garage; and William stoked those embers of courage, speaking life into this young and delicate area of my heart.
Tom paved the way for me into East Africa. My wife and I were 18-year-old lovebirds and had a heart to see the Gospel mobilized into difficult areas of that region. Tom helped to make introductions and connections that have led to us having worked in that region for over 10 years now.
James and Bri took us under their wings and helped us grow into healthy marriage and family. They modeled a missional life day-to-day as they lived out simple lives of faith and planting house churches in the inner city. We walked with them for nearly 10 years, during which we grew in character, love, and community.
Daniel was willing to give us an ear, and eventually even a stage at our sending church, to help launch and propel us into the vision God was calling our family into.
Our most recent chapter has been with the All Nations Family. Their training, wisdom, coaching, and encouragement have been influential in helping us learn to bear fruit in the things the Lord has been calling us to for years. I feel that they have taken the strange, meandering paths that the Lord has taken us on and helped us to tie them together in ways that allow us to see how the Lord has been orchestrating our steps this whole time. This team is real – loving my kids, my wife, and myself – helping us to grow as a healthy family on mission, and not just to perform mission tasks, they actually want us to be whole.
Moving Close
Our family is currently making disciples in East Africa, preparing to go to Asia, and living intentionally right where we are.
Here in the USA, we are primarily building bridges and looking for opportunities to share Jesus with Muslim refugees. We work with a pioneer unreached people group, meaning that worldwide, less than 0.01% of this group would identify as a Jesus-follower. They’ve been known as a very hard people group for many to share with and even to build relationships with. The Lord gave us some incredible favor among this group by bringing us a handful of different families with whom we were able to help with practical needs while forming relationships.
About 6 months ago, we moved our family into an inner-city neighborhood where a significant population of this group can be found. We eat a lot of dinners, visit a lot of homes, wrestle through the complexities our new neighbors face with life in America, and look for opportunity to demonstrate Jesus and His Kingdom with our actions and words.
Picnics & Power
This is one story. There is a large park near our home where many people from this people group gather in the evenings. Over our time in this community, we’ve been able to help serve and demonstrate Christ’s love to several people within this group, which helped tremendously when we showed up at the park. We were quickly invited into the community of people by some who recognized us. My daughter began to run around with the other girls, my older boys joined in with a soccer game, my wife and youngest joined the women and smaller children at the playground, and I was invited to sit with the men on a “picnic rug” to chat and drink tea.
While I was sitting among a group of about 10 men from this people group, we were unexpectedly joined by three local Mosque leaders. These older men were quickly placed in a position of honor around the rug and the eldest began to deliver a short Islamic sermon, a word of encouragement, to everyone sitting there. As the odd one out, I was soon targeted with questions from our new visitors. But before I could even answer, it was my friends who stepped in to vouch for me, my character, and my love for God.
These Mosque leaders’ attitudes turned from suspicious to curious and we began engaging in some real, deep spiritual talk. We ventured onto the topic of power and how the desire for power over others often fuels evil expression of religion around the world. Hearing this, I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to share a tale of an encounter with a witch doctor that I had experienced in Africa. As soon as I mentioned the word “witch doctor,” the eyes of these Muslim men expanded to about twice their normal size – “we don’t mess with those people! Weren’t you scared of them? What did you do?”
I was surprised to see the tone of these confident men change from one of confidence to cowardice so quickly; but it gave me a chance to share about how the power of Jesus broke the curse and power of this witch doctor over a village that had lived under his oppression for far too long. I was able to declare the good news that God is near to the oppressed, offering them a hope and rescue through the work of Jesus. The men were truly captured and amazed at how the story had turned out – and were eager to invite me to visit their Mosque sometime so that we could continue to chat.
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Would YOU make a way for others like Jacob in the next generation to make disciples in the nations? There are many more young people looking to be discipled and to learn how to disciple others, and All Nations wants to partner with you to do this. Let’s make a way for them to be sent to the harvest fields together! Give today!
Your gift will be used to mobilize, train, and send the next generation to the nations.
Want to partner in other ways to mobilize and send the next generation? Prayer, providing pastoral care, getting trained, and volunteering with All Nations are all great options. Fill out this form if you’re interested, and we will follow up with some ideas for next steps!
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True story written by Jacob (name changed for security), who is preparing to go as a missionary with All Nations with his wife and children.
