What's Next?Sample

### What's Next: Serving Along Indigenous People Groups It’s not every day you get invited to dig a grave. And who would really want to? For most of human history, it’s been one of those ‘lowest of the low jobs’. How could digging a grave be "WHAT'S NEXT?" for me as a missionary? But when I got the call it was the best thing I’d heard in a very long time! Ps. 113 declares that the Creator is actively engaged in dignifying the most dispossessed and helpless of all nations; > “Who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes, with the princes of their people.” And not only did God talk the talk in the Old Testament, but Jesus walked the walk in the New. He broke down human-constructed barriers with purpose and authority, He fulfilled every prophecy, He spoke to the lowest of the low, and constantly restored them to hope and dignity with actions and words, ebbing from the infinite powerful love from the center of His being. As a young and eager ‘missionary’ this is the Jesus I wanted to share with the nations. Going to live alongside a First Nation in northern Canada who have a long and painful history with the ‘white man’ I learned early on that I was not going to be met with gratitude and appreciation. My missionary predecessors had made sure of that!  I would learn that the government - alongside Anglican and Catholic clergy had forced the removal of children from their homes and families to be sent to far off ‘residential schools’  where they would be forbidden to speak their own language, have their hair cut, forced into uniforms, and forced to believe in a god named Jesus. This happened for several generations and was a major insult and injury to the dignity and culture of First Nations across the country. In an unholy alliance of church and state the efforts to assimilate the original people of Canada only served to alienate them from their own culture, their own families, and God. The last such school closed in the 1980s but the effects of them are experienced by First Nations people every day, like the venom of a serpent that runs through the veins of generations. It, therefore, seems logical that I had a difficult time making any friends. Yet I knew that these people were precious to their Creator and that He had sent me and my little family to share this with them. The more I understood about the recent history of this First Nation and their traumatic experience with Christianity the more I wondered how on earth I would be able to communicate God’s love with anyone? How could I possibly find a way to open doors with the people? Even just a crack? I began to feel hopelessness and defeat take over. All I could do was tell God, “I don’t know.” And keep praying. I was thus overjoyed to join in the honor of digging a grave for an elder, Grandma Eva, who had died at 97. She was a woman of good reputation and greatly respected. And as is the custom, because she was an elder her grave would be dug by hand. As I arrived at the cemetery I had an inkling that I wasn’t so much being honored, as that the other diggers were just desperate. There were only two of them and they were seniors themselves, leaning on shovels and already haggard with effort. These men who would barely give me the time of day in the morning now smiled and handed me a spade, nodding towards the shallow trench they had begun. The digging was tough, the soil rocky, and we even had to wrestle some very large boulders out of the deepening pit. Soon I was going by flashlight and feel, and the hours dragged on. I don’t know how long it took to reach the prescribed 6 feet down, but near the end, I saw a glimmer of something in the gravelly soil by my feet. I picked up the grimy glittering rock about the circumference of a quarter, and handed it to Joe, who said ‘Hey, he found a gold nugget in Eva’s grave!’ They both laughed. Later, (somewhere around 1 am) after the dimensions of the grave had been chiseled to perfection for the burial the next day, Joe tossed the nugget back to me. It seems at this point there should be some spiritual analogy about rocky soil, or buried treasure. All I knew is I had two new friends. And as I was to learn, in this culture this meant that their families and extended families were going to be my friends. God had opened a door. Just a crack. But in years to follow we would get to know the people and they would teach us a great deal. They still do. And we would share the love of Jesus with their children’s children. We still do. The Creator is lifting up people and drawing them to Himself everywhere. Are you looking in the right place? Pray that the God of the harvest would give you opportunities to participate in the sowing and the reaping! John 4:34-38: > ‘...even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so the sower and the reaper may be glad together.’ We want to thank Brent Austring with North America Indigenous Ministries for contributing this day's plan content.