A family's search for answers reveals a deeper reality.
One day, my neighbor got a sore throat. She started to cough, days turned into weeks, and meds didn’t help. Then her infant grandson had a few grumpy days in a row. He didn’t smile as much as he usually did. And then her daughter suddenly got a terrible stomachache. Finally, she decided it was all too much and needed to ask the shaman whether evil spirits were interfering. I happened to be over for dinner, and she invited me to come along.
The shaman put on formal dress, started strumming an instrument, and began singing. Speaking to the ancestors, she chanted the birthdates (down to the hour) and ailments of each family member, inquiring about the cause of the problems. After performing a 45-minute ritual, she relayed the results. I didn’t understand much, but my neighbor later translated. The sore throat was just science, no ghostly interference. The fussy baby would calm after sleeping with some rice grains from the ritual in a pouch under the pillow. Her daughter’s stomachache would go away tomorrow after chewing some of that same rice. Still, her overall well-being required another ritual to “recall” her wandering soul back to her body and cleanse the family of bad luck.
For most Westerners, including myself, these scenes are totally foreign. But for people here, this is normal. They’ve grown up this way, and while they’re aware that other communities don’t practice the same rituals, they haven’t yet considered a different way of life for themselves. To put it another way, the people here haven’t been given another choice. The world they know is shaped by previous generations. Even now, in the age of TikTok, the Internet, and smartphones (all of which are widely used), their methods for dealing with hardship and uncertainty remain firmly rooted in what their parents and grandparents taught them about the invisible spiritual world. Moms pin pouches with charms to their babies’ shirts to protect them against evil. Altars take up a corner of every home, and little stone dogs stand guard by the entrance. Inordinate amounts of time and money are poured into rituals that people recognize as fallible but still feel are necessary. Western medicine and science are limited. When spirits are involved, only the proper spiritual solution has a chance of being effective.
We understand the value of choice. We want our grocery aisles filled with options, freedom to drive a Toyota or a Tesla, the right to vote for this candidate or that. Of all the choices we make, the most important one is the decision to put our trust in Christ. As He extends His grace to us and brings us from death to life, we choose to follow Him, receiving His forgiveness for our sins, His power to cover our weakness, and His joy and peace to guide us through our troubles. The people here haven’t yet been given this choice. What will it take for the Christian worldview to become a serious option, giving people the opportunity to stand at the crossroads and say, “I have decided to follow Jesus”?
I feel the weight of being a human messenger with no power to save. In and of ourselves, we have no eloquent speech or earthly wisdom that could make an eternal impact. Only the Father can do that. And yet in His mysterious wisdom, He uses the folly that His messengers preach to save those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:21).
So, despite our inadequacies, we press on, dealing with land permits and zoning, sweating in rice fields, swatting mosquitoes, struggling through another foreign language, and more. All so that in our weakness, the Spirit’s power would be displayed when His people hear the ultimate message: choose Christ for He is your life. In Deut 30:19-20, Moses says to the Israelites, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.” There is no life apart from Him. To rely on idol worship or divination is to choose death, but to choose Christ is to choose life.
Please pray with me that the people here would be given the choice of Christ one day and that many would join us in everlasting praise to our King.