 “You have ten days to pack up and leave our country!” This was a phone call I didn’t want to receive, an order I was hoping not to hear. For almost twenty years, I have been ministering in a country where it is illegal to be a missionary. Christians who are called to this land go as tentmakers. They get their visas by becoming educators and language students, or by starting businesses or development projects.
About a year ago, friends started receiving phone calls to come immediately to the office governing religious affairs in our area. Their crimes were then listed: sharing about Jesus, distributing Christian literature, making converts, having illegal meetings. Some of the accusations were true, some not. Most were forced to sign a document admitting to their crimes and given ten days to pack up and leave.
It is not illegal to be a Christian here, but sharing your faith and “trying to convert” others is not tolerated. So for twenty years, I’ve been walking this tightrope of sensing the Spirit of God, being faithful to God’s call to share the good news, and yet not doing anything that would cause my visa to be revoked. In this sometimes hostile environment, I am called to be the still small voice, the gentle whisper, and the sound of sheer silence to those that God puts in my path. I have to discern when it is wise to speak and when the time to speak is not yet.
I can have a Bible and other religious literature, and I can even have a Bible in the main language of this country. These Bibles can now often be bought in the local market or at legal Christian bookstores and churches. This area where I live has more than one people group, though. Bibles in the minority languages of this multicultural area are not readily available, so we must find a source to bring in Bibles and other literature from outside the country. This spiritual bread is an important resource for new believers and those searching for meaning in their lives. Storing this literature and bringing it into the country is illegal.
Foreign Christian workers get deported and, at the worst, interrogated during times of crackdowns. Local believers have no passport to leave, so they face possible jail time if caught doing anything considered illegal. I am sensitive to the fact that what I do affects those around me. If I cross invisible boundaries and get my work visa revoked, my local friends could possibly be called in by officials and questioned. I don’t want to be the cause of the persecution of my friends.
“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness,” says an old proverb. I’m not in my country of service right now. I was able to leave without being questioned or having my visa revoked. I’m grateful that I can go back and plan to return there in the fall of 2008. In this country that sometime seems hostile and dark, lighting a candle is what God has called me to do; I’m called to be a light in the darkness and to point to the one who is the light of the world.
* Author’s name with held for security reasons. |