Last night at my small life group gathering in a friend’s living room, I heard a powerful and humbling testimony of faith.
Jaco and Inge are a couple from South Africa who left their jobs and family and friends back in February and moved to Mozambique to be missionaries to the Tonga people. They were simply being obedient to God’s call for their lives.
They bought a small piece of land in their new country and had begun building a house. They brought with them their three precious little blonde boys. They have only just begun working through cultural issues and developing relationships with the locals.
About three weeks ago they lost their three year old boy in a tragic accident. They believed that the Lord would heal him supernaturally. He did not. As Inge says “God had other plans.”
I really am still having trouble processing how they could sit there and talk about the whole thing without breaking down. I mean, they’ve been in the States for a week on a pre-scheduled trip and I’m sure they’ve had to talk about it way too much, but still.
How does Inge talk about God’s perfect plan? About how she is seeing lost people find Christ all over the world through this tragedy, and it softens the blow a bit. She admits she sometimes doesn’t care, that all she wants is her baby back, but she clings to her faith, to Jesus to hold her up. She spoke about setting aside her feelings, not trusting her feelings but trusting instead the promises of Christ.
Inge says that during the long trip to get medical help for Reiner, the Lord brought to her mind the verses in Exodus 14. “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never seen again. The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.”
Can you imagine God speaking? “See what I will do today.” Inge heard it.
She doesn’t really want to go back to Mozambique, to the place she lost her boy. But they say the calling was so clear, it would be disobedient not to and because of that, they will.
Our little group talks often about sacrificial faith. We talk about holding everything we are given loosely, knowing that God could ask us to give it up for Him. I have thought about what that means, knowing that means being willing to lose my husband or my kids for His plan. But I don’t pretend to know how I would handle that. I hope nothing like that ever happens.
Jaco and Inge are the very definition of faithful servants. I can’t even write about them properly.
I would just ask that if you are the praying sort, would you pray for this little family as they return “home” and try to begin life again next week?
