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Serving in missions is difficult. There are great sacrifices that one makes in order to serve. Sacrifices in time, sacrifices in distance from family, and sacrifices in earnings that could be made if the missionary pursued other work. There are also more significant sacrifices. In many cases, our missionaries are risking their very lives each day that they serve.
While we were in Africa, Tammy and I had the pleasure to meet a missionary couple from the USA and serving in Africa. We were also blessed to meet their two beautiful daughters. This family has been serving in Angola for several years. Angola is a difficult country to work in. It is just coming out of over 40 years of civil war and is facing the first free elections in its young history in a few months.
War for any country is a bad thing. In Angola, the war was particularly difficult due to its length and due to the fighting tactics that were used. One of the more sinister elements of modern war is the landmine. Angola is littered with landmines. On almost a daily basis, someone is injured or killed by a landmine that was left over from the war.
Our missionaries in Angola are tasked with planting churches in communities throughout the country. Their typical process is to go into a community, use movies and crusades to share the gospel message with the members of that community, introduce an Angolan pastor who is going to stay and become a part of that community, provide God's word in the form of the Book of Hope for the children and youth of that community, and then plant the church. At our meetings, we were able to equip them with copies of The GodMan in Portuguese. They will use The GodMan to begin an evangelistic outreach specifically geared to the children and youth of the communities where they are planting churches. With this process, they have been successful at planting churches all across the country.
A church planting process such as this requires lots of travel throughout Angola. Angola is not a big country. However, due to the years of war, there is little in the way of established infrastructure. Travel anywhere outside of the capital city of Luanda is very hard. As our missionary family travels throughout Angola, they must frequently stop wherever and whenever the needs arise and make life as comfortable as possible at that time. As they have traveled, they have coveted the prayers of their prayer partners back home. Prayers for effectiveness? Yes. But also prayers for safety.
As time has pass and the government has started to step up their efforts to rid the country of the risk of landmines, one of their first tasks was to work with the rebels to identify where landmines were planted. Together, these two previously opposing groups agreed to mark the area where they planted landmines by painting the side of the road red. Now, whenever travelers want to stop for a break, they know to look for places that do not have red paint on the side of the road. That is their sign that the location is a safe place to stop.
Our missionary family knew they had prayer warriors back home praying for them and specifically praying for safety. However, they never realized the impact of those prayers until recently. The reaction of the government and rebels to the call for identifying those landmine zones was swift. Almost overnight, red paint began to show up on roadsides everywhere. As our missionaries traveled, they began to see places where they had previously taken rest stops. Even places where they had made it their routine to stop for a break. At first they were horrified. Then they began to express praises to God for His divine protection. You see, many of those places that were once their stopping points were now painted red. They are places that are infused with landmines. Every step that these missionaries took off the road could have been their last.
In David's prayer recorded in Psalm 17, he says "My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not slipped." We are forever grateful that for this missionary family, their steps have held to His path, both in their spiritual walk and in their physical walk. Remember to lift these and all our missionaries up in prayer. As Psalms 119 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." Pray for the Lord to be that lamp unto their feet, that light unto their path. Pray for God's continued protection as they bring the gospel message to a war-torn country that is desperate to hear the good news.
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