One time, in 1929, we were coming home to Yagoua from Lere and stopped at a small village called Bosgoi. The Model T Ford had been overheating and needed a drink, as the Africans described it. In those years, whenever this iron monster stopped, a crowd would quickly gather in astonishment. My dad used many of these occasions to preach to the gathering crowd.
This day, as he was preaching, two men with long scraggly hair and unkempt beards were sitting at the back of the group. My father may or may not have recognized them as the two local medicine men, or witch doctors, as they were often called in those days. My mother told me later, that to my father, it appeared that they were disturbing the meeting and so in desperation he sternly said, “In the name of Jesus I command you to be quiet!” Immediately, they became quiet and listened to what he was saying. After a little while we continued on home to Yagoua.
A week or two later, I saw these two men approaching our mission compound asking to speak with my father because they wanted to hear more about this Jesus he had spoken about on that day the iron monster needed a drink. They had traveled 30 miles on foot and it had taken them five days to get to us. (You see they had to come to a village, make friends with the people, stay overnight, then go the next village, make friendly overtures, stay overnight and thus continue on their way...)
My folks had been in Africa 10 years and no one yet had received Christ. These were the first two in that region that did. These most unlikely ones were willing to receive the gospel, thus, one can never be sure who it may be that is open to the Good News. Perhaps it is someone you consider to be the most unlikely one.
This was the beginning of a great awakening in that district of Cameroon, and it all started in the village of Bosgoi because the iron monster was thirsty and needed a drink.
There’s a phrase that’s been going through my mind recently. “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve got.” I first heard this in the electronics manufacturing industry about 10 years ago from Harry, a six sigma black belt who was the quality manager at the firm where I was the training manager. He loved to use this phrase to help teach us that there are reasonable results to be expected from a manufacturing process...and that we need to be open to data-inspired change to these processes, or else it's ridiculous to expect different results.
Harry’s words have been going through my mind a lot this past week. Am I getting the results that I want in life? And if not, do I need to change something or stop expecting different results?
As I typed Dad’s story for today’s post, I kept thinking about 10 years... Ten years of waiting for a convert... Ten years in Africa of doing what Grandpa and Grandma were doing and not getting what they wanted: people to accept salvation through Jesus Christ. Did they contemplate switching things up in order to try to get different results? I imagine they may have…
Grandpa and Grandma kept on in faith when results did not follow. For 10 long years... They trusted God’s call and stayed the course.
I don’t like to wait a week for something I want, much less a year…certainly not 10. When I’m impatient or full of doubt based on invisible or nonexistent results, I need to go back to my Source. I need to chat with my Heavenly Father, reviewing my intent and actions with Him, and seek His response and direction. He may be leading me to switch things up, or he may be saying, “stay the current course and trust me.” He will guide, and either could be the right answer… Because with God, it is entirely possible to keep doing what we’re doing, and get something we’ve not gotten before.
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