It was an unplanned ministry that began one Saturday evening at a Mandarin worship service when three OA men showed up. One asked for prayer over his bleeding intestines and was subsequently healed of the ailment.
At the next service, he showed up with 14 OA men. ‘Coincidentally’, it was an evangelistic meeting and the church leaders made an on-the-spot decision to interpret the message from Mandarin to BM. At the end of the service, all the OA men – including two bomoh (traditional healers) – went forward to confess their faith in Jesus.
The church was stunned by (and unprepared for) the response. Nevertheless, it plunged into the work of serving their new OA brethren and reaching out to their community. Within six months, they baptised 65 OA.
It has been three years since that blessed Saturday evening and the ministry is still growing. Even the village headman has openly ‘accepted Christ’, though he has stopped attending church because of pressures from certain quarters.
Reaching out to the OA community has not been a smooth-sailing course, but the faith of those involved in the ministry has enlarged with each hurdle crossed. The church received threats; faced an attempt to disrupt a meeting; endured a road blockade to their van that was ferrying OA members to church, among other problems.
An unexpected hurdle came from the mother-church, who was initially hesitant about the ministry, but thankfully the doubts have cleared and the leadership is now totally committed to the ministry.
Along the journey, the church learned that the rougher the road, the more visible was God’s guiding hand. "Whenever we needed manpower, people would just turn up at the needed hour to serve. When we encountered problems, by the grace of God, somehow the problems were solved. And we were never short of funds throughout these three years," said the teacher who declined to be named.
Not only did they witness God’s providence and grace, they saw too His power through signs and wonders. "Mark 16:17 – 20 came alive to us," she enthused.
She added that the ministry had changed their lives. "For me, I began to know a little more of what it means to take up the cross and follow Jesus. For the first time, I was confronted with counting the cost of discipleship. The ministry could have affected my career but I felt I needed to pursue it at all cost."
They experienced, as a team, God’s outpouring of His love and compassion for the OA into their hearts, and found they could love people who are so different from them. "It was really a privilege that God has let us serve in this ministry. Often we felt that we had done nothing. We were there just to see what God was going to do," the teacher said.
A fitting reminder, indeed, that we can be useful vessels for Him so long as we are willing. |
