In Training, May 2010

Our pilot, Gary Lewis, opened the throttle of the small single-engine airplane, and we surged forward as we bumped along the grassy strip. With a final shudder, the airplane lifted into the air, cleared the jungle treetops at the end of the runway and began to climb, leaving the village of Paruima, Guyana, behind us.

As the village dropped away, John and I wondered whether we would ever see this place again or fellowship with the gentle people we had come to appreciate so much during our four short weeks of service. The plane continued to climb. Soon, the dense jungle spread out beneath us like an endless green carpet interrupted only by small patches of savannah, mountain outcroppings and the Mazaruni River, a thin, dark ribbon woven through it all.

The monotonous drone of the engine quickly lulled our daughters, Abigail and Alissa, to sleep. Not long after that, I also succumbed to drowsiness. Then Gary’s voice woke me. “We’re at 8,000 feet and still haven’t reached the top of these clouds. I still don’t see any way through them. We better start to pray.” The plane was circling and climbing. “I’ve already started,” John replied, himself a pilot in his younger days.

As the plane continued to labor upward and the wall of clouds in front of us mushroomed, our earnest prayers ascended. “9,500 feet, and we’re nowhere near the top,” Gary reported. “Wait a minute, there’s a break in the clouds developing over there. We will have to try to get through.” As we slipped through that canyon in the clouds and emerged on the other side, we praised God for His deliverance.

As the challenge of raising financial support mounts up before us like those towering clouds, I recall God’s wonderful deliverance in the skies of Guyana and His promise: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).

In Training: April 2010

Early-morning light dimly illuminated the jungle as my native friend and I quietly entered a clearing. We were visiting our third home of the morning near the village of Paurima, Guyana where my family and I served the Aracuna people for about four weeks at the beginning of 2009.

As we approached the home, we could see the cooking fire burning low in the outdoor kitchen and various family members engaged in their morning routines. This would be one of our last visits. By 8 a.m., almost everyone would be walking or paddling to their farm plots miles away in the jungle.

My friend greeted the family members and introduced me, and they gathered around us. I began by asking about the health of the children, parents and grandparents and listened carefully to their responses. I enquired about their banana, dasheen, eddo and cassava crops and admired the home they were building.

Then I stepped out in faith and asked a question. “Do you want to know why I am so happy today?” It was an honest question. I was happy, and as I began to explain my joy in Christ, a wonderful thing happened. The joy I had known in my mind flooded into my heart and overwhelmed me as never before. I gave a simple, biblical account of what Jesus had done for me and the difference He had made in my life and the life of my family. I offered a heartfelt prayer on their behalf, presented them with their own Bible, and we were on our way again. A seed had been planted. After that experience, I knew my life would never be the same again. I had to keep on sharing Him.

How about you? Will you share Him, too? You can share Him right where you are. You can cross an ocean and share Him with the unreached, or you can lend your prayers and financial support to us and help us share Jesus Christ. But please don’t miss out on the experience.

Introducing the Lello family

Fourteen years ago when I prayed earnestly for a wife, I asked God for two things—a woman who would love and serve Him with all her heart, and a loving mother to our children. In Pam, God gave me all this and much more. She is the joy of my life, and our two girls, Abigail and Alissa, have only added to our happiness. God has also supplied our needs and provided me with a ministry through a career as a mathematics teacher and more recently as a builder.

Some time ago, it occurred to Pam and me that life is not like money. We can’t save it; we can only spend it. We will spend every second of every hour of every day of our lives on something until all our time is gone. Looking back on our lives, we can see both wise and foolish choices with a pattern running through them. When in submission to God, we made wise choices. But when we failed to submit to God and spent our lives selfishly, we made foolish choices. It really is that simple.

Recently, we seized the opportunity of a lifetime to submit to Christ and spend our lives unselfishly. We answered God’s call through Adventist Frontier Missions to minister to the Ama people who live along the upper reaches of the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea.

God has called us to a remote location that we will reach by traveling 90 miles over rough roads and more than 24 hours by dugout canoe. I will travel out of the interior once every three months to get food and supplies, and Pam and the girls will only travel out about once a year. He has called us to a difficult location where we will live in a rough structure built from jungle materials and galvanized steel. He has called us to a place plagued by malaria, pneumonia, dysentery, tropical ulcers, skin diseases and many other health problems. He has called us to a place of great spiritual darkness where the people live in fear and bondage to demons masquerading as departed ancestors and nature spirits.

So why do we look forward to this challenge? Why do we find it hard to imagine doing anything else? Because God’s light shines most brightly in the darkness. Because He has prepared the way before us by miraculously inspiring the Ama people to build a house of worship to a God they don’t even know. Because He promises to go with us and never leave us. Because we are “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Luke 9:23, 24)

Friend, will you lose your life for Christ? It’s your only hope of really living. Won’t you join us in answering God’s call? Perhaps He is calling you to give your life for the unreached. Maybe He is touching your heart with our mission to the Ama people and calling you to support us with your means and prayers. But one thing is certain—He is calling you, calling you to give your all.