New Year's Motivation

I never thought we’d start 2016 like this. In some ways, it’s a good start, because it makes the reason why we’re here so much more vivid and real. Yet it’s also a really, really hard start.

One of our national friends died early on New Year’s Day. It was very unexpected. And very much not an accident. The senselessness of it all is overwhelming. Yet through it all, I cling to the fact that God is good.

We sat with the family and friends as they grieved. I wish I could describe to you their grief. The wailing. The sobbing. Grown men walking down the road crying like babies. We cried with them. We hurt with them.

Death is real and raw here.

We certainly didn’t expect to start our year like this with hearts heavy and hurting for our friends. But I’m so glad that this family has hope. So many people all across PNG are facing death daily, and their grief is unending because they do not know Christ.

Last week, a very sick man from a nearby tribe was flown out to town, and we drove him to the hospital. He died there a few days later. In that crowded, dirty place. And he died without hope, without hearing the Gospel. The missionaries in his tribe hadn’t had a chance to do any Bible teaching. They had hoped he would survive, but he didn’t. His eternal destiny is sealed, and it’s so, so sad.

We didn’t hear the death wails for this man, but I can only imagine. The intense grief and hopelessness.

Like I said, death is real and raw here.

I’m thankful that we’re here. In this place. At this time. So many people don’t know, and we have the hope they need. As we go forward in 2016, may that hope be the thing that motivates us every day, wherever we are.