10 August 2007

Mission for a Time to Come

Proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ is for me the most difficult missionary task. In Bangladesh, and particularly in the city of Dhaka where I work, there is no end to the obstacles that hinder me from bringing the good news to those who seem to need it most. Simply surviving in Dhaka is a major feat, with its erratic electricity, garbage on the streets, typhoid-contaminated water, and postmen who steal my mail. Then I have to travel through the horrendous traffic on overcrowded buses and on roads jammed with rickshaws. Even after I make it to the sites of my ministry, there is still the challenge of language, the final task of communicating with the people in ways they understand, in ways that speak to their deepest needs. Of course, Bangladesh being a Muslim country that includes fundamentalists, I face special risks as a Christian missionary. Evangelizing too loudly could get me killed.

Despite the obstacles, God continues to call missionaries like me to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in Bangladesh. Jesus cares tenderly and compassionately for all people, and he suffered and died not just for some of us, but for all of us. He calls us who have heard this good news to bring it to those who have not, and he sends us out to proclaim the truth of his resurrection in bold and authentic ways. I pursue that mission on behalf of all my Christian brothers and sisters, who believe that proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ is an essential act of our community of faith.

Les Morgan and Jahanara Begum.

Most recently I have been carrying out my work in the slums of Dhaka. I run small clinics in one of the poorest areas near the shipyards on the Buriganga River. At one of the clinics a few months ago, a Muslim woman named Jahanara Begum came to me seeking relief from severe asthma that had affected her most of her life. The smoke from the wood fire she used for cooking and the polluted Dhaka air were making her asthma worse and worse. Because she had not been able to afford proper medicines, she had developed profound secondary complications of her disease. Now, besides hardly being able to breathe, she was weak and emaciated, her heart was failing, her liver was enlarged, and her abdomen was full of fluid.

After getting her started on medicines, I checked up on Jahanara in her home every time I ran a clinic in her area. She had seen the cross at the top of my clinic stationery, and she knew I was a Christian missionary. We became friends. I met her husband, about thirty years her senior, who is now feeble and almost blind. Her 13-year-old daughter, Beauty, recently dropped out of school to work in a garment factory seven days a week for a salary of 12 dollars a month. That just covers the rent on their one-room tin shack with dirt floor, leaky roof, no plumbing, and only a nearby water faucet that comes on twice a day for an hour, enough time to collect the day’s water and flush away the feces that has accumulated in the communal latrine.

Despite treatment from a local government hospital and the care I provided, Jahanara's condition gradually worsened, and on my last visit I found her lying on her wooden bed, too weak to raise her head or talk. As the intense June heat radiated through the tin roof, flies fed fearlessly on her nearly motionless body. Since no other treatment was available, all I could do was to sit on the edge of her bed, fan her with a piece of paper, and gently lay my hand on her head. That was the only way I could communicate to her the love of Jesus Christ and the truth that he tenderly cared for her.

Jahanara died a couple of days later. I believe that God, by helping me through all the obstacles I face as a missionary, led me to her so that I could care for her, just as he does. He sent me to proclaim to her his goodness and mercy and to prepare her for a time to come. For the time is drawing near when Jesus Christ will make himself fully manifest to all the world. It will be a time when those who must live in hot, crowded, filthy slums will instead be given homes that are wholesome, safe, and peaceful. Mothers who have had to take their daughters out of school and send them to work in sweatshops will instead see them living in dignity and growing into the fullness of life. Those who at an early age suffer and die because they cannot afford medicines for their illnesses will be healed by leaves that grow freely in their midst. For next to the river where they live will not be a dehumanizing slum, but the tree of life that God has promised.

The eschatological mission of the church is to prepare both itself and the world for that time to come. And when that time does come, my prayer is that Jahanara Begum will remember when I sat next to her on her bed, fanned her, and gently laid my hand on her head. All my Christian brothers and sisters were with me in that act, and our prayer is that when Christ, the Lamb of God, comes to usher in his kingdom, Jahanara will recognize him and respond, “Yes, Lord, I believe!”

Your missionary,

Les

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 115