'God, honor them for their commitment to hearing Your Word.'

We’d been hearing all week that they were going to ‘wash’ the Bapi river on Friday.  We’re in the middle of dry season and we’re not sure that we’ve ever seen the Bapi this low – seriously!  Anyway, because it’s low, the people have been gathering poison root to beat the pulp until the juice runs out in a canoe.  Then they’ll capsize the canoe so that the mix of water and ‘poison’ makes the fish all slow and loopy – and much easier to catch!  This is always a big event and lots of fun.  The people get lots of fish and dry quite a bit of it afterwards.  Anyway, we kept hearing that they were going to do it on Friday – which was encouraging as we don’t teach on that day and no one would be tempted to skip out on the teaching with the temptation of lots of food.  Then yesterday we heard that a canoe of guys from another language group upriver had come through and said that they were going to do it today – Thursday, the last teaching day this week.  We were a little bummed as we knew that some would skip the teaching for the sake of fishing.  That’s understandable when they live hand to mouth every day.  But still….we were praying and hoping that many would wait and go after the teaching time. 

 

And there was a small crowd there this morning.  The most faithful were there and it was a good enough crowd to teach, even though we would have liked for everyone to be there.  Then as soon as we got done, the talk and preparations started to head upriver and meet up with the ones that went ahead.  So Elias, Matt and myself changed and got ready for the hike upriver and the fishing down river.  The guys use spears and knives to catch the fish while fortunately, us ladies use small hand-held nets.  So we set off, a group of about 8 of us with others coming behind us.  It was kind of fun to be doing something different from the norm – and this is always a really fun thing.  You come back tired and burnt but having had a really fun time with the people – and with some fish for dinner too.  So as we were hiking on the very edge of the river, through the jungle, over some logs, through brush and such, some of them were talking about whether the ones that went first thing in the morning had already started or not.  Would we meet them on the trail half-way or get there before they actually started? And as I listened to them talk (many of whom  had encouraged others to wait until after the teaching), I prayed, “God, please honor these folks’ commitment to hearing your Word.  They’re wondering if they’ve missed out on all the good fish and yet, you are Jehovah Jireh.  Give them fish to carry home for their willingness to honor You before their bellies.”  And we kept walking – still looking for folks and wondering what the day would hold.

 

Then we saw a couple and another lady just ahead of us on the trail.  When we got up to them (folks from another of our villages, Busan), they told us that they weren’t ‘washing’ fish today but tomorrow. The Busan folks were still gathering the poison root today, everyone was going to fish tomorrow.  So all those that went first thing this morning were going to be a bit disappointed when they didn’t rake in any fish in today.  It didn’t take long for me to think back to my prayer.  He didn’t answer it the way I expected, but He did honor their commitment to hearing His Word!  Now tomorrow, they can all go first thing in the morning and be a part of the process from the beginning – and they didn’t have to miss any of God’s talk to do it!  I wanted to do a little jig right there as I thought about what He had done!  He knew all along that they wouldn’t ‘miss’ anything today but they didn’t know that.  Hearing His Word was more important – and I feel like the Lord honored that!  I can’t wait until they’re praying those things for themselves but in the meantime I’ll rejoice and praise Him for answering in a way that He knew would be best!  Yea God!