In another village a landslide had dumped dirt into the grounds of a school. The principal of the school called the head of the village to ask him to call people to come and help clear the dirt away. The village head asked people but no one responded. A second time the village head set up a meeting but again no one responded. At the second meeting were two Christian families who attended a church in a much poorer, minority tribe village. The families shared the need with the church and the pastor agreed to help.

The pastor approached the head of the village and offered to help. However, the village head was humiliated that someone poorer and from a minority tribe would be the one to help so he refused. The pastor then approached the principal of the school but he also refused the help.

A few weeks later the pastor was at a meeting where the provincial government was discussing the problem of a cult that had come to their area. The pastor shared his desire to help remove the dirt from the school and the district official also refused the offer for help, again because it would be humiliating to have someone so ‘low’ come to help them. The head of the province over hearing the discussion insisted that either the district official got the work done or he let the church do it. The district official agreed that the church could help and 30 people from the church worked together to complete the work.

The provincial leader was so impressed by the Christians that he called another meeting to ask the Christians to go and evangelise in the areas where a cult had started. The pastor was amazed – typically this is illegal and sharing the gospel is a risky activity. However, now the head of the province was asking him to go and share the gospel. He assured the head of the province that he didn’t really need to be asked and was more than willing to go.

The government also decided that they wanted the pastor to find two Christians to replace their current policemen. The current police were ineffective and no one paid any attention to them. However, the government recognised that the pastor was well respected and everyone in the community responded when he spoke so they wanted people similar to him.

We are thankful to God how he has used the pastor and his church’s simple obedience to really speak to the government and open so many doors to impact areas where they never could go before.