Nard told his story -- a story of a gracious and powerful God who is on mission -- in our weekly gather at the Wycliffe office in Orlando this morning. I won't try to re-tell his story since you can read it for yourself online if you are interested.
Here is my take-away, the thing that God impressed on my heart and mind as I listened to this story: GOD IS ON MISSION. He is not surprised by the events that knock us off our feet.
And the other thing? GOD CALL SOME OF THE MOST UNLIKELY PEOPLE TO JOIN HIM IN THAT MISSION.
Nard -- a young man from a headhunting , isolated language community -- called to be a missionary pilot for a season and now serving as "Strategic Partnership Faciliator" for Wycliffe International for the Asia-Pacific area.
Me -- a woman if very northern European decent who grew up in communities where the klan was active -- serving with Wycliffe in a leadership role that includes responsibility for strategies that move us toward "building a multi-ethnic workforce and becoming a biblically inclusive community. "
What about you? What molds has he broken in your calling? What expectations did he explode to get you into your current place of service?
How that was fast! He was very inspiring!
ReplyDeleteI recently came across a large audio file of Nard Pugyao speaking at http://www.worldmissioninitiative.org/wmi conference.htm . It is aimed at recruiting people to mission and it definitely encouraged me not to quit our organisation for a little bit longer :)
ReplyDeleteI live in Australia and first got to know Nard when we were both teenagers. We both read Back to the Bible's "Young Ambassador" magazine, and became pen friends through that.
ReplyDeleteWe lost track of one another several times, but one instance of how the Lord brought us back into contact was amazing.
One morning I'd been praying about Nard and told the Lord how I'd love to find out where he lived so I could write him. That afternoon I came home from work and found an envelope from America addressed as follows. 'Lynne Churchyard. Penrith NSW Australia". Yep, it was from Nard and amazingly, despite only my name, suburb and state, the letter found me. Now that is a case of "before they call I will answer".