On
more than one occasion last month in Alaska, conversations turned to the needs
in the villages. We want to see native churches led by native pastors. In the
meantime, what seems to be at least one necessary element is the missionary
willing to go for good, willing to be isolated, willing to feel the brunt of winter
after dark winter; in short, willing to go there to die. And no doubt the
romance of working in a northern village dies at the rate of six or seven
minutes each day until the sun no longer rises and one realizes his need for
Something greater than romance to sustain him.
At
the risk of perpetuating a bit of romance, I quote Robert Service’s
personification of the Yukon: “And I wait for the men who will win me—and I
will not be won in a day” [HT: Jim Elliot, who acknowledged quoting the words “utterly
out of context”].
The
irony is that God has chosen the weak—in Service’s words, even “the dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain”—made
whole and strong by the gospel and empowered by grace, to make disciples in
this land, by authority of the King of the land (Matthew 28:18-20).
I enjoyed
reading the entire poem here.
