The evening that the weekly men’s and women’s Bible teaching meetings began, there had been a recent dynamic of conflict, missionary Lois Manda writes.
“One of the families recently had a big fight,” she shares. “Harsh things were said and a daughter and son-in-law walked out on a mom, leaving her with some very large rice fields to harvest alone.”
Lois appreciates the openness of tribal people, she says. “They are often more willing to be transparent than we westerners are.”
Lois arrived at the apartment of Tipung for the Bible teaching. Tipung began to share the story of her daughter and son-in-law and her “side” of their family conflict.
“In the Lord’s wisdom,” Lois writes, “the lesson I had prepared was on humility and forgiveness.”
As she taught and shared from God’s Word, Lois was blessed to hear the maturity and wisdom of younger women who were at the meeting and shared their hearts with Tipung.
One young woman observed, “Whenever I do something wrong, the unbelievers will say to me, ‘What good does your religion do you, anyway? It’s just for Sunday.’ So this is your chance to show our friends that don’t know the Lord that our belief in God does make a difference in our lives.”
Since Tipung and her daughter and son-in-law all profess to know Christ, Lois is praying that they will each come to confess their own sin in this broken family relationship and that the transformation of their relationships will carry a powerful message to their community.
Lois shares, “This truly would be a testimony to the unbelievers in this village.”
Pray for Tipung and her family—pray that God’s grace will work transformation in their family that will speak eloquently to their village. Pray that God’s Word will continue to impact and transform lives, families and cultures wherever He sends it.
You can be trained to teach the Bible to a tribe who has never heard the Good News of Jesus.