Challenge Central: a CBC devotional
By: Casey Korstanje
I had dinner this summer with a couple accused of spying for the CIA. Truly.
They seemed like ordinary folks.
He wore a black T-shirt and jeans. She wore a blue (or was it grey) patterned top and had a huge, sparkling smile.
He’d sent me a tongue-in-cheek e-mail earlier telling me that he and his wife had “died their hair grey” so I would be able to recognize them at the restaurant.
I had told him to look for a very bright blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt. That would be me. (Maybe we should have had secret passwords)
Davey and Marie Jank are missionaries supported by Central.
The Janks had spent the better part of the last 20 years living in the Amazon jungle among the Maco people of Venezuela. Davey’s first home in the jungle was a shed of sorts. You needed something to keep the rain and bugs out… more or less.
During that time, Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela as president. He described himself as a Marxist and a prominent foe of the United States. He decided to target missionaries, likely because that needled the Americans and particularly Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, who may have said some colourful things about Chavez on air.
At first, the Janks were ordered out of the jungle and required to live in the city. Soon enough, they were accused of being spies and booted out of the country.
But the real story is this; the Janks had one goal in mind. Bring the Gospel to the Maco people. Talk about a mountain to climb.
The Maco had an oral culture. That means no written language. None, which affects everything, their lifestyle, how they view the world, how they communicate, how they think, how they make judgments. Everything.
You, on the other hand, approach the world in an entirely different way. You have been trained to read since you were a toddler. To you, all the words you speak are letter groups. Reading is as reflexive to you as breathing. You may not win a spelling bee, and you may even have slept through grammar class. But make no mistake; reading is part of your DNA. Every day and everywhere you read. Road signs, directions, google, every app you look at, product labels, and the caption under every YouTube video—the Bible. You are a people of the written word.
And that’s why the Janks were in Venezuela. To find a way to introduce literacy to the Maco to bring them the Word of God.
Talk about a job that requires Supernatural strength and assistance. The Janks needed to live among the people, learn their language, develop an alphabet (a staggering task), and create written words with the singular goal of producing the Bible in their language.
It also meant developing relationships, meeting the people where they are, developing common ground and gaining their trust. Learning about how they think, how they put things into context.
It took years, and only when that personal, trusting relationship had been built were the Maco ready to listen to what the Janks had to say about the Gospel.
To date, the New Testament has been published in the Maco language, and Davey figures they are about two years away from publishing the Old Testament.
The Janks have meanwhile found a way to meet with the Maco people at a village on the Colombia side of the Venezuelan border. And the work goes on.
The Sunday after that fascinating dinner, Pastor Alan preached about the free gift of salvation and told a story about giving an extra sandwich he had to a panhandler. (Pastor Al had got a two-for-one deal). He told us that he’d run out of Bible tracts but refreshed his stack that afternoon and returned to where the panhandler was still sitting. This time he offered him a bun and passed a Gospel tract along with it.
The man took the tract along with the bun from Pastor Alan because he remembered the sandwich. What transpired between Pastor Alan and the panhandler is a microcosm of what the Janks are doing.
The Janks found common ground and laboured to gain trust through their actions to do one thing, share the Gospel.
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” Mark 16:15 (ESV) And that means us. And the whole world lies just outside your door. Peter offers a prescription for how to do that: 1 Peter 3:15 “…in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” (ESV)
Honour Christ in your hearts. Show gentleness and respect. Love your neighbour as yourself. Find common ground, then share the Gospel. That is the challenge every day.
