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Waldron Mission Fund |
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Under the oversight of the elders of the Crossville church of Christ, PO Box 211, Crossville, TN 38557 |
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Vol. 41 July 2007 No. 7 |
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HIS NAME IS ABRAHAM
In May of 2006 a nineteen year old young man named Abraham, who speaks a language known as Lisu, walked four and one half days from his home in Gandhigram, Arunachal, and then rode a bus another day and a half in order to enroll in the English language preacher training school at Shillong in Meghalaya. Arunachal is in the northeast of India spread across a rugged mountain terrain called the Lesser Himalayas, and it borders on China. Its position in India is much like that of the state of Maine as the latter borders on Canada. Travel is mainly on foot or boat with only some few parts of the state having roads that are maneuvered by jeeps and rugged buses.
Being very curious about how a person would cope on such a trip I had another brother, who also speaks Lisu, to translate for me, so that I could have Abraham describe the trip. Gandhigram is located on the north side of a large national park which has very few people living in it. He described his journey by saying that on the first morning he ate his breakfast about 6:00 and started out with a pack to carry provisions for the four days. These consisted of rice and a few vegetables for cooking along the way. He also carried a small cooking pot, a grass mat to sleep on, a sheet to cover himself with and a plastic sheet to cover that in case of rain. He would walk all day and at 6:00 in the evening would stop, take water from a stream and cook his rice and vegetables. Afterward he would pull grass as a cushion for his sleeping mat and sleep until about five the next morning; then follow the same procedure as the first day.
Unfortunately the only language Abraham knew was his native tongue, Lisu; thus it was impossible for him to do any class work in English. It made me sad that we did not have a school in his language so that such an ambitious young brother could be trained to preach Christ and His kingdom. Many times during these last fourteen months I have thought about him with the hope that we could some how get him trained.
THIRTEEN BROTHERS THAT SPEAK LISU
When Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch after their first missionary journey, “they reported all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). The following portion of this newsletter will be like that report in that it tells in an amazing way how God has opened the door of faith in the state of Arunachal.
Dibrugarh, Assam, lies just south of the state line between Assam and Arunachal, and it is here that we have another of our schools of preaching. It is conducted by two graduates (’04) from the Bible school in Shillong: Tang Kam and Tifusa Yobin. The school is conducted in the Hindi language. In May this year those two conducted the five day course that serves as a selection class for in coming students. There were nineteen brothers who applied and thirteen of them were from the church in Gandhigram and all spoke the Lisu language. All had walked four and one half days to get to Dibrugarh. When I arrived in Dibrugarh (June 26th) and heard this I thought to myself we need to have a school of preaching in their town in order that they may study in their own tongue and need not walk four days to get to Dibrugarh. Having learned that the church in Gandhigram had its own building I thought that those brethren might let it be used for preacher training. What I did not know was where we would get teachers, although I did know that Lisu was the mother tongue of Tifusa.
So the first thing I did was seek his advice and that of Tang Kam. They thought the idea was very good and told me that two of our students in Shillong who were about to graduate were from the same area and spoke the Lisu language. These would be ideal as teachers for I knew that both were good and godly students. Their names are Simeon and Nguaphosa and both use the sir name, “Yobin,” although they are not related. Yobin is a tribal name.
Since foreigners are not allowed to travel into Arunachal without special government permission, I asked Tifusa, who knows the elders in Gandhigram, if he would go see them and ask if they were willing for a SOP to be held in their building. I also wrote an email letter to our elders in Crossville to inform them of these things, which had developed out of the school in Dibrugarh.
Fortunately there is a military transport plane that makes a trip once a week from the Dibrugarh area to a military base near Gandhigram and although passenger seats are very limited Tifusa was able to fly there on the June 12, and return on the 20th. Here is a portion of his report:
On 16th evening we had a meeting regarding the Gandhigram Bible School. Gathering: Elders, preacher, deacons, some students and the church’s older men. They said, “it is God’s blessing we are receiving to have a Bible school at Gandhigram. We have no objection using church building to teach Bible. This building is the place to learn and worship the true God. We pray to God that it may accomplish without any hindrance.”
Not only was his visit successful for the school, but while there he held gospel meetings of two days each for two congregations (Hazolo and Gandhigram) and dealt with evils of pre-millennial-ism and instruments in worship; as those two doctrine are well entranced among the denominations there.
During the week of May 20th-26th I was in Shillong, and while Harrison (grandson) was still with me, we traveled to Dibrugarh and Diphu in Assam, then on June 1st Harrison returned to the States and I went south to Tamil Nadu for a month. For two weeks while there I had the privilege of working with brother Miguel Arroyo who had come from Mexico to preach and teach in one of our schools. On June 30th I returned to Shillong for the fourth annual graduation (July 1st). Tifusa and Tang Kam were also there. Together we sat and talked with Simeon and Nguaphosa and they readily agreed to do the work of evangelists and to conduct the Bible School in Gandhigram. There will actually be fifteen students as two others have decided to enroll; unfortunately Abraham is not among them, apparently he is still wanting to study in English.
What is amazing to me is that all these marvelous things are taking place, not because I sat down and planned them out, but because God has opened a door that someone could have, so to speak, driven a Mack truck through. Even now (July 8) as I write these facts, I continue to be amazed at the manner God does “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
Our beloved brother Paul fired four powerful questions at all of us, “How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15). The impact of these questions, in the face of world evangelism is to say that some must go and some must send. They do not leave room for neutrality. Beloved each one of us needs to ask him or herself how are we reacting to these questions. We must answer in view of eternity! We cannot, nay we must not sit on our hands! After being gone for exactly seven weeks (May 19–July 6) by the grace of God I returned home to Laura on the latter date.
With love for all from the Waldrons’ house,
Jim E. Waldron |
