I was changed by a man wearing bird on his head

I sat spell-bound as a missionary named John Cutts began his talk at the church where I was serving as the assistant. He had an image of men wearing only feather, paint and long gourds holding  poison-tipped hunting arrows up on the huge TV screen we had rented for his presentation. 

"I'm not sure how this pictures will go over, 

but I wanted to show you a picture of one of the 

people you will be feasting with at the banquet

for all of eternity!"

I'll be honest, as a white-bread-suberbian-Connecticut-kid who never heard of missionaries growing up it took me a while to let the image and the force of the message settle in. 

"This is your brother. 

When the Bible talks about every tongue, tribe, and nation

this is what it means. 

This is your family. 

John began to tell us about how these followers of Christ have ceased tribal warfare and now go to villages to spread the message of the love of Jesus to people who once killed their own. War took up most of their lives, as did the fear that came along with it. 

But then they heard of the God who died for them, 

and their lives were never the same. 

The area of Papau, New Guinea where these children of God live is a never-ending sea of ridges and valleys that form a near impenetrable fortress between themselves and other tribes as well as the outside world.  The depth of isolation caused this region to birth a full one-fifth of the worlds' languages. Love from the outside world desired to bring iron axes, medicine and water but the planes could not land until an airstrip was built. 

This village had spent 28 years clearing the land by hand! Impressive indeed!

But it was the story John told of the airstrip that failed that changed my life for ever. 

"They make a test of the new airstrip in an unloaded plane. The big day had come and the whole village cheered as the plane landed. 

The pilot got emerged from his cockpit and was instantly surrounded with cheers and yelling. 

He had a lump in his throat as he delivered the news;

'I am sorry, but this strip will not work with a fully loaded plane'

the villagers didn't say a word but went and picked up their primitive tools and began to build a new strip right along side the one the had just spent ten years working on. 

Baffled at the lack of complaint he asked one of the elders about it. He replied;

If we don't build this new airstrip the villages 

down rive will never get medicine. 

If they don't get medicine, they will die. 

If they die, they will never hear of Jesus. 

We cannot let that happen. 

If I die before I finish the work, 

my children will continue."

These villagers understood what Jacob saw when the angels ascended and descended the ladder from heaven. They went about the tasks God gave them to do, without fear, without grumbling, without complaint.  

They trusted the end of the story and so lived it out in the middle. 

May we do the same.