Frontiers couple Michael and Samantha were very familiar with overseas missionary life. Both grew up as children of missionary families that had embraced God’s call to make disciples among all nations. Their love and passion for the nations took root in their lives from a young age. They were also familiar with the struggles of cultural adaptation and acceptance in foreign communities.
Being familiar with the challenges of living in another culture, however, doesn’t exempt you from experiencing struggles of your own. Such is what Michael and Samantha discovered as they pursued their calling to love the least of the Middle East.
Not long after their marriage in 2007, the couple set out on their lifelong calling to a Middle Eastern country. Their first stop was in a neighboring country where they started the exhausting process of language-learning and the relationally-straining stages of cultural acclimation.
Progress was painfully slow, but their language skills eventually set in, and they began having hard-earned conversations with people in their community. In a superficial sense, communication with locals was getting easier; the words fitted into the grammatical structure with greater fluidity.
However, attempting to build more meaningful relationships during their season of language study was much more problematic. Local Muslims were suspicious of outsiders, and for good reason. The country was on the doorstep of an uprising—it was the dawn of the Arab Spring. Tensions and paranoia were high, and foreigners’ motivations were often held in question. It’ll get easier when we get to our next destination; they figured. After all, the God of all was calling them there; certainly He would open the right doors.
In 2011, Michael and Samantha were finally able to make the transition to the country where they felt God had called them. They were filled with excitement and high hopes as they entered their new host country. They relished the task of learning local conventions and establishing themselves. Together they dreamed about where they would live, what they would do, whom they would love as God loves.
Michael began working at a local university. This provided him with a context to start developing relationships, and a few initial contacts came out of the workplace. Michael also quickly developed some friendships with local shopkeepers and vendors.
Samantha, however, struggled. She wanted so badly to be able to invite women over to her home for tea as is customary in the culture. She wanted a chance to listen and respond to the needs of the people God had called her to love. Though developing trust and meaningful connections with the women, she came into contact with was proving difficult. They were finally in the country that they had so long pursued getting into, but what would it take to find a way into the lives of these precious people?
Then an unexpected path opened up. The university for which Michael was working approached Samantha to ask for her assistance in documenting the history of a certain Muslim people group in the country.
Long oppressed and overlooked by generations of governmental leaders, these were a people that had dwelled in the region for nearly 6,000 years. Their ancestral lands were in the marshes between two life-giving rivers. They were a self-sustaining people that had learned not just to live, but to thrive off the land that God had created. They established a resourceful lifestyle around water. Food came from the river; their homes were constructed from the unique vegetation of the marshes. Even their cooking fuel came from the marshlands. They received what God had given them from creation and stewarded it responsibly.
Other peoples in the region were not as responsible tow ards the resources of the marshes, or the people who inhabited the land. Samantha and her team of researchers concluded that even though these people and their land endured decades of oppression and physical attacks, their real demise began when the country’s dictator started to rise in power. The dictator engaged in ethnic cleansing, attempting to rid the nation of its minority groups. He plotted attacks against them and massacred thousands.
The attacks were not enough, however, so he adopted a more severe strategy. He destroyed their entire way of life by altering the way of the rivers. The marshlands were drained. Samantha’s research concluded that because of this brutal tactic, many of the people’s traditions and practices are now being lost. Their society has become increasingly fractured and xenophobic. They have withdrawn from outsiders, fearing that they will add insult to injury.
Nevertheless, they welcomed Samantha and her team. Thanks to her background in anthropology, God has unexpectedly blessed her not only with access to this unique Muslim people group, but also with unparalleled acceptance into their communities.
Moreover, Samantha is the first bearer of the Gospel to be welcomed into this unengaged people group living in the middle of a war-torn, fractured region that has otherwise rejected her and Michael. It was among this rejected people that God planted them in relationships of consequence.
Samantha and Michael note that even though the beginning of their story in this host country may have started out with unexpected challenges and heartaches, God’s provision for them built their faith exponentially. As they saw God come through for them, He stoked the fire in their hearts for the work He brought into their lives and, for the people and country that He called them to love. Just when the odds seemed most stacked against them, God revealed that they were most in His favor and divine will. Samantha and Michael believe none of this to be accidental. They believe rather that all of this is part of God’s plan for the work He has allowed them to be a part of, for the sake of reaching these marginalized people with the love of Christ.
An exciting development in their story is how God has opened doors for Michael as they have walked through the door He opened for Samantha in the marshlands. Michael’s work at the university has provided him an opportunity to get involved with aquaponics. That is a system in which waste produced by farmed fish and aquatic animals supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, while also purifying the water. Michael is now working closely with Samantha to utilize her relational access to this people group in order to provide them with training in aquaponics. He hopes that these new techniques will one day help restore their traditional practices and, in the process, introduce them to the God, who truly is God of all we have and need.
Original article: www.godofall.org/blessing-behind-need
