It was 2001. Maybe early 2002. I can’t quite remember. I was in Papua, Indonesia. It’s the west side of the island just north of Australia, the east side of which is Papua New Guinea. I was there as a school teacher, teaching six kids whose fathers were pilots with Mission Aviation Fellowship.
It was a strange situation. I had no plans to be a missionary. I had no plans to be overseas. And yet, God called me, and here I was, in this hot, jungly, third-world place that was literally trying to kill me at every step. Germs. Malarial mosquitos. Deathly poisonous snakes. Wild dogs, cats, and rats. Water not safe to drink. Humidity high enough to melt photographs. It didn’t feel like missionary work at all. It felt like what I had been doing for years: teaching children and living life — but in a much more difficult situation. I wasn’t doing missionary work. I wasn’t winning souls for Christ. I was teaching small children how to read and write, just as I had done in Canada.
I was there for a year. I knew from the outset that it wasn’t going to be forever. I knew there was stuff I had to face back home. Staying would have meant running away from the things I had to face. In some ways it would have been easier to hide in the jungle. But I went home. I faced the stuff I had to face. And I never went back to Papua. I was not meant to go back. It was a season. Instead, I went back to school and became a prof at a fantastic Bible college. Today, I am doing what I have always been meant to do: to teach.
But I have always wondered what it was and still is all about. Yes, I learned a lot that year overseas. God used that year in Papua to transform my life. And I’m good at what I do today (I think). I love my job. But what difference does it all make? I wrestle with it often. Maybe I’m taking the easy way out. Maybe I’m hiding in the Christian bubble. Maybe I’m failing at this "being a follower of Jesus" thing. And then I think, But I truly believe I’m doing what God called me to do. I think I am making an eternal difference. I examine my heart and believe it and rest in that for a little while, until the next wave of doubt crashes in. Really? You’re a cop-out, Marianne. You’re a wimp and a sorry excuse. Even in Papua, when you were supposedly a “missionary”, you just did what you always do.
The year was 2001. Or maybe 2002. I don’t exactly remember. One of the pilots whose kids I taught came to me. There was a group of missionaries in the jungle, in a village with no air strip. They were serviced by helicopter, but the helicopter was broken down and they had run out of supplies and their generator was not working. They were starving. So MAF was going to attempt an airdrop of supplies. Did I want to go? Are you kidding? Of course I wanted to go! So we went. The pilot took the bay door off the plane. We (pilot, crew, and I) flew out, circled the site, tried to figure out the best way to do this thing, and started chucking stuff out of the plane. It’s hard work circling a site just so and chucking the stuff out so that it lands in a spot where it can be retrieved. Several drops ended up in the tops of trees. Several packages ended up lost in the jungle. A bag of sugar landed on the outhouse and destroyed it. But most of the stuff ended up safe and sound in the possession of these brave missionaries who were isolated from the outside world for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a cool experience for this school teacher in a foreign land.
The year is 2020. I am sitting in chapel at Mission Conference at the Bible college where I teach. The speaker is talking about how he and his wife and another couple went into the village of an unreached tribe in Papua. They jumped out of a helicopter into the midst of a tribe of people who had never had any contact with the outside world. They built homes there and for four and a half years learned the language so they could preach the gospel. And many in the tribe came to faith. In fact they are now sending out missionaries to other people groups. They were rescued from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light. It was an amazing story, the story of real missionaries who do hard and courageous things and see dramatic results. Certainly not my story.
But as I sat there listening to this amazing story, feeling guilty once again for my comfortable Canadian existence, a thought dawned on me. These guys entered a village in the jungles of Papua in 1998. Could it be? I started doing the math. Four and a half years after 1998 is 2002-2003. It seemed far-fetched. Impossible. But I asked. In 2001-2002, I was in Papua, and we did an airdrop to a bunch of missionaries in the jungle. Was that you guys?
It was.
I was in the airplane that chucked the sugar that took out their outhouse. I was in the airplane that dropped the supplies that saved their lives.
I take no credit for any of this. If I had been responsible for that airdrop, the missionary I heard speaking this week would have died on the spot. I would have hit him, not just the outhouse, with the sugar. I was just there. But I was there. I was doing what God called me to do that year. I was teaching. Teaching kids whose parents were pilots. Pilots who served missionaries in the jungles of Papua. I was there. In being faithful to do what God called me to do that year, I was a small part of the eternal saga that was unfolding in that jungle village, and I had no idea.
And here we are, nearly 20 years later, I a Bible college prof, he a speaker at our Missions Conference, laughing about the sugar that took out the outhouse. And I know that I know that I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. Just because I do not see the eternal saga doesn't mean I'm not doing what God has called me to do. I did not see the eternal saga in Papua when I was there, either, but it was unfolding. I am not a cop-out or a wimp or a sorry excuse. I am following Jesus, doing what he has called me to do, and as I faithfully follow him, he is using me in the eternal story in ways I cannot begin to see. I had no idea that I was part of a story that would result in the salvation of members of the Moi in the jungles of Papua, but I was. I have no idea what parts of what stories I am involved in now, today, right here, but I see now that I am.
It is not often that the tapestry is revealed and that I get to see just a glimpse of the glorious plan that God is unfolding in this world, but how grateful I am that he gave me that little glimpse this week. He is working in his world and the gospel is going forward and I, even I, am playing a part in that. I'm not on the sidelines. I'm not a cheerleader. I'm on the field, and I'm playing to the very best of my ability.
One of my specialties is chucking sugar on the outhouse.
