September 2, 2019
I went walking again today, as I have every day for the past week. I have nodded, smiled, and “A salom”-ed a hundred people. I have paused to chat with whoever didn’t look preoccupied, and settled for smiles and a hand-over-heart greeting exchanged with others.
This evening, I met a girl who appeared about twelve. Her school uniform looked sharp. Two braids were accented by enormous lacy ruffles around the bottom of each. Her thumbs were tucked into her backpack straps as she puffed her way up the hill. She was smiling broadly before we were even close enough to speak.
We conversed with the precision of new English speakers, neglecting contractions and following classroom dialogues.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she replied shyly.
“How are you?”
“I am fine, thank you.”
“My name is Lily. What is yours?”
“My name is Ziroda.”
“This hill is hard to walk, no?”
“Yes,” she laughed.
“Ziroda, it is very nice to meet you.”
“Same to you.”
Her dark eyes were bright. A bigger smile, then she turned to keep walking home.
I love children, everywhere. These kids here are so friendly. They will smile and talk with me anytime. I wonder what a neighborhood Bible club effort could look like here…
I surveyed the houses around me, thinking about the people who live in them. Then it hit me.
Ziroda has, most likely, never heard the gospel. She may know the name of Jesus, but only as a lesser prophet in a line of many prophets. Her family prays to a man they believe has received divine light, but they know nothing of the Man Who is divine Light.
If Ziroda dies tonight, she will probably be condemned to eternal wrath as judgment for her sins. She has heard nothing of Jesus’ absorbing that wrath, to offer sinners grace.
This town is filled with people like her. The mountains that surround us hide roads and paths to hundreds of villages, filled with people like her. Across the river to our south, the neighboring country is smitten by even deeper gospel poverty, due to the oppression of a terrorist regime.
This is unbearable. I am surrounded by people who have never heard the gospel.
“Yeah,” you might say, “there are people everywhere who need to hear the gospel.”
That’s not what I’m saying. I am surrounded by people who have never heard the gospel. And their ignorance is not due to indifference. They just live so far away from the outside world, nobody has ever brought the message to them. They’ve never had the chance to reject it. They don’t even know what it is.
What would it take for that to become unacceptable to us? What would it take for the American church at large to mobilize and utilize its lavish resources to DO something about this global gospel famine?
In America, anyone who wants to can hear the gospel, get a Bible, and find a Christian to talk to. There are too many places in the world where those possibilities do not exist.
That fact has gripped my heart for years. I’ve seen it and been overwhelmed by it before. Just a month ago, I lived in a South Pacific jungle filled with villages bereft of the gospel. Preparing to visit this Central Asian desert, I knew it was also one such place.
But tonight, my attention is arrested by one such face.
Ziroda.
“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith He unto His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest.’”
Matthew 9:36-38