PIONEERING: WHO WILL DARE TO DIE?

My husband and I began our missions career rather naively. We thought all missionaries were pioneers. We had read the biographies of Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael, Hudson Taylor, David Livingstone, and George Mueller. These men and women were our role models. When God called us to bring the good news to the Somali people, we had been saved for only three years. We hadn’t been to Bible college, and we didn’t know what apostolic function was. We quit our jobs and sold our house and all our possessions. We bought two one-way tickets to Africa. We held back nothing. We never expected to return; surely, we would die in Somalia. After three years in Africa, we got a big shock. My husband became ill, and we returned to America alive. But we were still sold out, and a year and a half later, we were back in Somalia.

Though ignorant at the beginning about the face of modern missions, our premise that we would die in Somalia was based on reality. The Somalis have a history of being militantly Muslim. Early on, we were mentored by a missionary who had spent his life among the Somalis beginning in the 1950s. He sent us a tract he had written for people considering work among Muslims. Most of the tract is forgotten, but we remember the theme: “Prepare to die.”We were unprepared for our friends and colleagues on the field to die, some young, some talented, and somehow more valuable to the Kingdom than ourselves. We ask ourselves why. Why them, and not us?

Martin, Sheikdon, Christine, Colin, Libaan, and Farah died for their faith. All died violently. When our dear friend, Martin Utzi, was questioned about the safety of taking his wife and young children to Somaliland, he answered, “If what we are doing is not worth dying for, then it is not worth living for.” Only a short time later, as his 3-year-old son looked on, sweet, gentle Martin died from a gunshot to the head. Our friends won’t have biographies written about them. Few people know of their sacrifice. Yet, in dying, they show us how to live. Each of us must deliberately be about the work God has called us to do, so that collectively we usher people of every tribe and tongue and nation into the Kingdom.

Jim Elliot, martyred by the Waodani tribe of Ecuador, wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

For 25 years, my husband and I have proclaimed and lived the gospel among the Somali people. That is not long enough. We are still alive, and the Somali people of East Africa are still an unreached people group—and so are the Afar, the Beja, the Boni, the Digo, the peoples of Darfur, the Gosha, the Nubians, the Omani Arabs, the Northern Sudan Arabs, the Yemeni Arabs, the Rashaida, the Shagiyya, the Swahili of Pemba, and the Wata.

LIVE DEAD CHALLENGE

Who will go and live among these people groups? Who will dare to die for them? Don’t fool yourself into thinking you will die for Jesus overseas if you do not die to your flesh today. Be on the lookout for some small way to crucify your flesh today.

UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUP: SOMALI (PUNTLAND)

Somali society is dominated by drug addiction. Their favorite drug is called khat or chat. It is legal in Africa and comes from the leaves of a bush (Catha edulis). Many Somali men use this drug, usually gathering in groups to socialize with fellow users while they chew. Chewing sessions last for hours, and many men chew every day. Money that should be providing food and clothing for the women and children is too often used to buy another bundle of leaves. Remember the Somalis when you see a leafy green bush or someone chewing gum. Pray that the Lord would deliver them from this drug use.