JASON OF ERO aU eek) A ee ee PO BOX 8083, CANTON, OH 44711 UT eee aaa) POOR Uae! UU ICUS Ler REL Volume 34, Number 9 September 2009 Our Children in Vishakapatnam, IndiaAVISION FOR ASIA Solomon, history's wisest man, wrote that “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18 | remember preaching on this text in one of the great revival conventions in Andhra Pradesh, India. My dear colleague and inter- preter, Pastor P.L. Paramjyothi, interjected into his English interpretation, as he smiled at me, “Where there IS a vision, the people flourish!” | have had some life-altering visions from the Lord in my lifetime. The first came when | was 3 years of age. | felt a real calling in my heart that | was to be a missionary. This was not an admonition instilled in me by my devout and loving parents, as well it might have been. Rather, when | was about 30 years of age and already established in my ministry, my mother told me an amazing story. She had already borne 9 children, and had been told by her doctor that she could not physi- cally have another. While in prayer one day, the Lord spoke to her and told her that she wouldhave another child, a son, and “the tithe is the Lord's.’ She went on to tell me that she vowed never to tell me, as | was in her eyes an obedient son, and would probably become a missionary to please her. Her motherly wisdom told her that | would have many dangers and trials as | pursued my calling, and that knowing it was God who called me, and not my mother, that | would be better equipted to sustain all the attacks of the enemy. And so it is, that 70 years later, the vision has not dimmed, and the call now is as clear as when it was placed the heart of a little blond-haired Dutch boy. The second vision came to me while on a round-the-world missionary trip while | was serving as the director of the Wesleyan Missionary Council in 1972. | had been assigned to go to the primitive western highlands of New Guinea, where our missionaries were evangelizing heathen cannibals. A young college student gave me an invitation from his father, a church leader in south India, to speak at their convention, which would be attended by 20,000 villagers. It was a grueling journey to reach that remote area. Jumbo jet travel changed into a final journey in an ox cart. When | arrived, my heart was moved as | saw thousands of poor and malnourished people living in the worst poverty | had ever seen. The pastor was caring for dozens of orphan children and widows, all of whom showed signs of malnutrition. The room where | slept was on the second floor of a simple brick and concrete building. There were no carpets on the rough concrete floor, nor curtains on the window openings. My bed was a wooden frame with woven sisal ropes as the mattress. It was 5 feet long, hardly long enough for my 6 foot frame. No sheets were on the bed—only an old kaki army blanket for my cover. But | was hardly prepared for what happened when dusk came the first evening. | was to find out later that the Hindu man who live next the building worshipped rats, and fed them outside my room. One, two, soon at least 20 large, well-fed rats were running around my room. | then hurried downstairs to tell the pastor of my situation, and he kindly sent a boy with a stick to stand guard over me and fight the rats off my cot. But what happened next was a cause of fear and praise. The head of my cot was against an inside brick wall, topped with a ledge that ran from rafter to rafter.This famous photo, taken on 5 June 1989, depicts an unknown man halting the advancing tanks ofthe People's Liberation Army, near Tiananmen Square. A large rat was running on the ledge above my head, and it fell on my pillow. My instant reaction was fear of being bitten, but fear changed to praise when | saw it fell on my pillow facing away from me, and jumped off the cot! One afternoon a young pastor knocked on my door, and asked to speak with me. What he related to me was my second life-changing vision. He was pioneering a new church for outcast fishermen located near the Bay of Bengal. This is the area that was devastated by the great tsunami in 2004.These poor people survive by fishing in the sea, and trading fish for rice and vegetables. Since they were untouchables, no Hindus would come near them, and they were not allowed to enter any village or shop. This precious pastor was living among them, and reaching them with the love of Jesus. He did not speak English, and brought an interpreter with him to be able to tell me his story. He told me that a few weeks earlier, he had been praying alone in his thatched hut that the Lord would bless his ministry and enable him to reach these fisherman for the Lord. He was kneeling on a mat woven from palm leaves. He said that his white dhoti (similar to a long shirt) was old, and had been washed many times. As he prostrated himself in prayer, he felt the back of his shirt tear from top to bottom. He began to cry and prayed, “Oh Lord, this is my only dhoti.| am a pastor, and must wear this when | preach on Sunday. | have no money to buy a new one. What can | do?” He said he felt a hand on his shoulder. Thinking that someone had entered the room, he turned around. To his amazement, it was the person of Jesus standing next to him. “Malachi,” said Jesus, “I will stitch the shirt for you.” Jesus then knelt down next to him, and pulled a thread from the palm-leaf mat. He knelt behind Malachi, and stitched his shirt. Then Jesus said, “| have helped you now, but soon | am sending a missionary from America, and he will help you.”