Faith and the World we Live in

What would the world be like if there was no faith. Would we act the same, live the same? I doubt it. Faith is crucial to the human body, we cannot survive without it. God made us that way. What if I had no faith. I could not believe anything. I would come home from school, lock my door, and not even open my door for my roommate, assuming that he would do something to me. You see, I would not trust my roommate. Faith is trust, and without trust we couldn’t live. We are confronted by evil on a everyday basis. If we cannot trust that somehow, someway, we would get through our struggles, everyone would commit suicide. If Don didn’t know that somehow, God would stick up for him and make sure he got through his struggles, Don would have given up, and went back to America. But Don believed, despite how the existence of him was so fragile, that the Sawi could and would be brought to know Christ. Imagine what the world would be like for the Sawi had their been no faith. They would be living in a endless bubble of treachery and hate, because no one trusts God well enough to let his love do the work. But people do trust God to work wonders, and because of that, worlds are changed. Jesus himself didn’t work wonders in his hometown because they had little faith. If we don’t have faith, nothing will happen.

Missions and the Sawi

Missionaries, like Don and Carol, try and change the minds of people, without changing the culture. The goal of a missionary is not to force people under their control, so the can develop foreign thrones of gold where they will sit and drink pineapple juice all day. The goal of a missionary is to forget one self and become obedient to Christ, as he was obedient to the cross. Missionary’s are not out to please themselves, but to please others. What missions do for these people is help them live longer, more physically and spiritually. That is evident from the novel Peace Child, Don once stood up in the middle of a fight to make sure that these people would not die without hearing the true word. And he succeeded too. He stopped the fight, and cured the man that was wounded. That is the work of a true missionary. Like I said before, Missionaries don’t change the culture, they need to change the Word to fit into the culture. The Sawi would never have believed what Don had said had he not linked Jesus to the Peace child. When Don hadn’t mentioned the Peace child, they regarded Judas as the hero. But when the concept of the Peace Child were associated with Jesus, Judas suddenly became the evil one. When missionary’s change themselves for the culture and have every intention of helping it, that’s when God’s plan can be accomplished.

What God Wants us to do for Other Cultures

Before Jesus went up to Heaven, he gave this last command to his disciples: “7…it is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."(Acts 1:7) Considering this was Jesus’ last request, I assume this was one thing he really wanted his disciples to do. If I was on a deathbed, and I knew my last breath was coming, I would say something that I want my children to do. Maybe I’d say, “love each other”, or something like that. But what Jesus said was something more important then I could have even said. When Jesus went, we wanted the Joy that he disciples had to be brought to all cultures. And back when Don asked God, “is this it? Is this what You want me to do? (75)" The answer God gave him was yes. God wanted him to go and lead others to Christ, and fulfill his ambition. God explained to him that the world does not resolve around he himself, but it revolves around God, and by serving God you are doing the right thing. We should do what God wants us to do, and God wants us to go tell the world about him. If we don’t, we really cannot be called Christians.