One
Decision
by David Hall
Why
is this
trip to Bangladesh so special to me? Only
a dozen students
are
in this
Discipleship Training School where I am teaching this
week - some six or eight hours outside the capital city of Dhaka. When
I arrived in Dhaka,
Bangladesh, Mosese was there to pick me up at the airport. On the way
to
his lovely home and family he thanked me again for coming to his remote
village in
Samoa so many
years ago.
(Picture: driving down a
typical street in Dhaka, Bangladesh.)
Don’t under-estimate the potential of this current DTS to impact the
world. Just one decision
can have an impact on nations
I could
never
dream the impact on the world
that small group would have
over the next few decades.
It was late 1970's. Loren Cunningham came for a short
visit. Loren is now recognised as "the most traveled man in the world"
as he's gone in obedience to the Lord to share the Gospel in literally
every nation and most states and provinces of the world.
Don’t
under estimate the potential impact of a short visit.
We made a simple decision to show Loren, the founder of
Youth With
A Mission (YWAM), something God created: a waterfall
that was only about a mile up the mountain from the YWAM base in
Nuu’uli.
He didn't tell us until later that he
was recovering from a sprained ankle. But he wasn’t about to
let
that stop him. We all made it to the waterfall without incident and
enjoyed a swim. My wife, Lydia, got a swimming lesson from the
former USC
water polo scholarship recipient (Loren).
Then we made a decision to climb onto the big rock and ask God one
question:
are we to run a DTS in Samoa? We all sensed that God
was
saying, "yes". I remember sharing that
I felt God
was saying “Yes, even if it’s only for one student.” We went back to
the YWAM base encouraged that we knew our next assignment from
God.
(Picture: Man and children in
front of a Samoan kitchen.)
We
put the word out the best we knew how – through the “coconut wireless”
(word of mouth) and several students applied. But
only one person who started at the beginning of the school made it to
the end: Suega. One student was asked to leave because of repeated
theft, another for even worse stuff. One left because of family
problems, and
a couple others came to the school a week or so late.
The week I taught at the school - which we decided to locate in Apia,
the capital, even though we were living in Pago Pago - Suega invited
me
to go with him on the weekend to his
village in Savaii and speak to the small group of young people who met
regularly for prayer and Bible study at his home. It was led by his
older
brother, Opeta. I couldn't help but wonder:
Would going to one
small home fellowship make any
difference? Don’t under-estimate what God may have in mind.
Just obey what He tells you to do.
I could have decided not to go. I could have reasoned that I needed to
get back to my wife, especially since we
had been married less than a year and I had very little money to leave
with her when I left for Apia. But I knew I could trust God to look
after her and the team as I was faithful to go in obedience to God.
When the week of teaching was
through, Suega and I hopped on one of
the crowded buses in Apia for the hour or so drive past the airport to
the wharf for the ferry to Savaii. We waited at the wharf in the hot
sun
for what seemed like just shy of eternity. Finally the ferry came and
we could board. Was it the
MV Queen Salamasina? Anyway,
we got on. But finding a place to sit on the deck - along with the
pigs, the coconuts and all the Samoans who were also looking for a
place to sit
down on the open deck - was no easy task.
(Picture: A typical bus in Apia, the capitol of Samoa)
The smell of the diesel, along with the ocean waves, usually does a
number on
my head when I take a boat trip like this. Sometimes I just feel like I
want
to dig a six foot hole and cover it up. But I knew the pain in the
head would only be for a season. When we finally arrived in Savaii it
was
into another old bus and off on the final section of the journey to
Suega’s village. His village had about 1000 people, mostly
children and youth. At the
time it seemed like I was going to
the ends of the earth, much
like this trip to teach in this Bangladesh DTS.
Samoan hospitality is hard to beat. So what if there’s no running
water inside the house, no TV, no
fast-food – and lots of
other
stuff we’ve come to
accept as
normal to our lives. (We didn't have most of that in
Pago
anyway.) Did I mention that most of the
“johns” were a 50 yard dash - with sufficient holes in the old boards
at the right level to keep an eye on what’s going on in the village
while you
take
care of business? Sometimes simple
is better!
When I shared from the Word of God at the home fellowship I sensed a
real
hunger for more of God. I challenged them to pay the price –
whatever
that might be – to obey God with their lives. But I could never
dream
the impact on the world that small group would have
over the next few decades.
After
they attended a six month
Discipleship Training School, one of them went to
Hong
Kong, another to
Japan, a couple to
Taiwan,
and the one who just thanked me for that long-ago trip
to his Samoan village - to
India. Still others from
that
home fellowship went to other parts of the
world to share the
good news.
Several of them started and still
lead YWAM ministries. Some,
like Mosese, have many workers serving under their leadership to
advance
the gospel and are highly regarded by Christian leaders in those
nations. Others are working with various Christian churches
and/or
mission organizations.
(Picture: Samoan
children in a typical Samoan fale.)
No doubt there were
many factors that played a role in
influencing and
shaping the lives of those young people. Most of them grew up attending
Congregational, Methodist or Catholic churches in their village - like
most Samoans. But what a tremendous
privilege was mine to have played a small part in their decision to “Go
into
all the world...”. Of course
if
I knew the formula to
repeat those
results,
I’d do it again a thousand times over.
We’re called to
plant the seeds (normally through sharing the
Word), to
water (normally through prayer and follow up), and
shepherd
the flock
God gives us - the best we can. But God is the one who brings the
increase – in His way and in His time. So don’t under estimate what God
may want to do with just one decision.
