Daily Topic for May 02, 2010
One thing that draws people to Christ is when they see in practical terms that He is in control. In this situation, a missionary among an unreached people group managed to win an influential witchdoctor by surviving an attempted poisoning. The result was that the door to an entire tribe was opened to the gospel. Did Muller have exceptional talents? Perhaps she didn’t, but she had exceptional faith to do whatever God told her to do. How is your faith?
Pray for exceptional faith among today’s missionaries in the Amazon River Basin, so that they will go no matter what challenges they face.
by Keith Carey
Being stranded helped Sophie’s prayer life! She nervously prayed for the next couple of hours, until God gave her the peace that she needed. God sent a trader who took her where she wanted to be: Sejal, a Curipaco tribal village!
Then she faced another challenge. As a spiritual rite, a witchdoctor gave her a stew with the most potent poison he knew of to see if she would survive. Not knowing what was happening, she ate the stew, and only vomited a little, but she survived. The witchdoctor was so impressed that he accepted Christ on the spot.
Muller was warned that these people would kill her and take her possessions. After telling her about the Curipacos’ love for drinking, dancing and immorality, the trader said, “You will not change them.” Her reply was, “I won’t change them, but the Word of God will.”
In Sejal, she met Capitan Lapa, the chief. After winning favor with him, she began the task of teaching literacy to the Curipacos using the Word of God. Songs were especially effective; they loved to sing Christian songs even before they understood the gospel!
As time went on, the Curipacos began to understand the value of literacy. Meanwhile, Muller was becoming more fluent in their language. She managed to cut the literacy training time from two months to two weeks before moving on to another village to repeat the process.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to grant faith and love for missionaries working among the unreached in South America’s jungles.
Next day: Biography - Sophie Muller, continued (part 3)
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