Seeing the Future

Back on the trail, I realized that the slice of green melon was the only thing I had eaten all day. Ever prepared, Steve had brought a lifetime supply of Powerbars along. I asked if he would burrow through my pack and find one for me, so we stopped for a short break while he searched.

In the meantime, I took a few swigs of the luke-warm water I had been lugging around all day. Although bottled water could be bought in many roadside stores, Steve made sure I was hydrated at all times. We even pre-hydrated, drinking a liter or so of water the night before we set out on our journey.

At my insistence, we checked our map before moving forward. I wanted to be absolutely sure we dropped in each village marked on the map. I was open to the Spirit's leading, but we needed to remember the wide scope of our mission so that our "intuition" didn't trump the plan our trainers had marked out for us. After all, the Spirit also indwelt them when they walked these routes and drafted the vision for us to come.

The VCD's were not meant to bring a harvest in themselves. They were tools to break the ground so that subsequent M's could plant seed into soft, moist soil. In essence, we were using the VCD as a medium to advertise Jesus, not as a "western" religious icon, but as the Son of God who displayed mighty, supernatural power during his time on earth. The idea was that when other teams came through offering spiritual life through the name of Jesus, people who had seen the VCD would already respect his power.

Without a follow-up mission, our labor wasn't likely to bear any fruit at all. We had to think about future teams as we considered entering a village. We were there to sow the initial seed of the gospel, not to reap. When our work was finished, the Work had just begun. From the U.S., we would continue to pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into the fields.