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Is it Time?

 


How does a missionary know when it's time to move along in a ministry?  Recently in one small community where we have gone weekly for Bible study with adults and children, we decided to throw in the towel, so to speak.  In the beginning we had been invited to have Bible study in a home.  The man and wife called in their neighbors and friends.  For a while there was a good number.

I started staying outside with some of the children and playing some games and having a small lesson.  Those children called their cousins and friends.  Before long there was a good-sized group of kids.  They would arrive early and began to bug the lady of the house for water and even snacks.  She got tired of them and told them all to go away.

She still wanted us to have Bible study for the adults, but she didn't want all those kids coming early to her house.  It was quite the sticky situation.  For a while Byron would go to her house, and I would round up kids and went to a shade tree not too far away.  

Then the adults got to be fewer and fewer while the kids got to be more and more.  I needed help.  Byron left the Bible study and began to help me with the kids.  And so, it went for a few years.  We always hoped of finding more adults to do another Bible study in the same community.  We made some good contacts with adults and had several campaigns in the area with various missionary teams.

We held on for a while hoping for more missionary assistants or even members of our small interior congregation to come alongside and work in the communities near our focus location.  That has not happened. For the past several months there have been around 3 faithful children.  Then two, and then one.  One day I had more cows than kids. It's sad, but it might be time to move along.  Our Saturdays are already full and our time is short. 

How do you know when God is closing a door?  How do you know when to wait just a little longer?  We pray and we hope.  This isn't the first community we have had to tell good-bye.  There are so many.  Alas, the workers are few.



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