September last year, angels celebrated
in heaven over a small group of people in Talid-Talid who trusted the Lord Jesus
as their Saviour! The church here in Lapoc also rejoiced at this news of the
fruit of their labours. During that month, our family, along with others, went
to Talid-Talid to meet these new brothers and sisters. When we arrived, we
found the believers waiting for us at Jerwin and Erica’s house where they held
their meetings each week. We worshipped the Lord with them, shared a meal
together and had a pretty awesome day of seeing what God had been doing in this
remote and ‘wild-west’ type of frontier. Just one time of experiencing
the difficult terrain and the dangers that our fellow-servants of the Lord
travelled through every week to take the Gospel to Talid-Talid really gave us a
huge new appreciation for their courage and endurance.
Paul was invited to share a message of
encouragement from the Word during our day with them and his message included a
challenge to the new believers about the many who still haven’t heard the Good
News. When Paul asked them who would be willing to go and tell others the message
of salvation, Tisyu – the man in this picture - was one of 3 men who stood up
and said, “I will go.” Jerwin was another who also said that he would go.
Not long afterwards, the young church in
Talid-Talid was scattered when Jerwin was killed, another believing family’s
house was burnt down and much persecution followed. The believers fled to
various places for refuge and for months, we had not heard word of them apart
from scanty bits of news about Jerwin’s wife and family.
But praise the Lord for great news He
brought to us this week through some believers who had been away for months
working as sugar-cane cutters. During their travels they came to a village far
away from Talid-Talid and there they met Tisyu and guess what he is doing? He
is preaching the Gospel!
We don’t know how many people he is
teaching, we don’t know how many have been saved through his preaching, but we
are thrilled to hear that in spite of losing his home, his livelihood and being
driven away from his village through persecution, he is sharing Christ, he is
telling others the message of salvation.…the Lord has preserved him and given
him this ministry!
This place where Tisyu was seen
preaching, is a place Paul went to a few years ago when he was surveying an
area on the other side of a huge mountain range that forms a boundary for the
Tala-Andig people group. He went there to see how many unreached villages are
in that area and he even stayed overnight in someone’s house in that very
village. We thank the Lord that today, some of the people in that place are
hearing the Gospel through this dear brother!
Please pray for Tisyu as God speaks through him in
this new place where he is, and please pray for the many more unreached that
still need to hear the Gospel in this huge valley that we live in and on the
other side of the mountain ranges that surround us.
