In
thinking this week about the marginalized people groups of the world, I was
reminded of another story, from a missionary couple in Senegal:
"We
went to Senegal in 1990. We were expecting that we would be assigned to a large
language group, one with hundreds of thousands or perhaps even a million
speakers. But when we arrived, we found that the larger languages had either
all been taken, or no work on them was currently planned. The top three
priorities that SIL gave to us to visit and pray about all had only about
10,000 speakers. During that trip, God seemed to be clearly leading us to work
with the Kwatay, a group of only about 5,000 people. I remember walking through
the village the night we were there, and I stopped to watch a full moon rise
over the point of a grass-roofed hut. A voice seemed to come to me, "Is it
really worth giving your whole life to bringing God's Word to just 5,000
people?" I was struggling with that in my flesh - and it wasn't so obvious
at the time, as it is now, where that voice was coming from. But then I seemed
to hear another voice. It said, "How many churches are there in
Weed?" Weed was my home town in California, a small mountain community of
about 3,500 people. I started to count and came up with 8. The
"voice" then continued, "Eight pastors who are giving
their
lives to bring the Lord to that community, isn't it right for the Kwatay to
have one?" We never looked back. God went on to impress on us from the
Scriptures that he had never chosen the strong or proud or numerous, but he was
always concerned with the widow and the orphan and the outcast - those who were
small in the world's eyes. The Kwatay New Testament was dedicated in 2000.
I think God is especially pleased to hear such a small group of voices gathered
around the throne singing, "Úsali Atambatun!" ("We praise you
God!")."
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