Ought to Feel Sorry

“‘And not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship should even be dethroned from her magnificence.’” Acts 19:27, NASB.

In one unreached area of the Pacific Rim, where we have conducted many medical clinics in the past, we were recently informed that we could no longer come. This surprised me somewhat, so I asked who had forbidden us to come. Villagers indicated it was the commune leader, so I, and another believer scheduled an appointment to meet with him.

At the meeting the leader said, “I’m afraid there might be trouble if you come.” We asked him if there were any problems with patient care or any medicine reactions. He continued, “No, no, the care was absolutely excellent. We would love to have your clinics every month. The problem is not the clinics, it’s the religion.”

He asked us if we could do the clinics without any talk of religion. I replied, “When we give care like that the patients are going to get better and we want them to know that God helped and healed them, not man or medicine.”

He laughed and said, “I don’t have a problem with it, the religious leaders do. You are taking away all of their followers. You ought to feel sorry for them. What you are doing is splitting the community.”

We thanked the leader for his time, and gave him a copy of the Jesus Film to view, so he could see for himself what we had been sharing with the people. After the meeting we had mixed emotions – ranging from wanting to burst into laughter (we should feel sorry for them) to wanting to burst into tears. While the door is closed right now, who knows what will happen if that leader actually watches the film we gave to him. We’ve seen stranger things happen.
 
*Excerpt from the newsletter of a Pacific Rim worker in a Last Frontier area.

Pray that:

God will open the heart of this village leader to the Gospel, and reopen the village to future medical clinics.

Believers in this now-closed village will be wise and bold in their witness, so that even more people will have the opportunity to be healed by God.

The Gospel will spread rapidly among this unreached people group.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.