Last month I caught up with Shanti, who was one of my
students two years ago in a class I taught in South Asia. In many ways Shanti’s story is common
in this part of the world, but unique in its nuance.
Shanti is from the state of Manipur in the northeast of
India. Born into a Hindu family,
she became a follower of Christ just a year before I met her. Predictably the opposition to her
conversion became an issue in her household. Shanti’s father wanted to arrange her to marry a Hindu boy,
but she refused. Shanti’s pastor
visited with her father and suggested she attend a training school that
specializes in small trade projects for church workers and missionaries. After completing her training she
returned to her home and now works in her church.
I learned that Shanti’s mother and sister are now followers
of Christ and her father has softened his attitude towards her. At this stage she does not want to
think about marriage as where she lives finding a Christian boy to marry would
be difficult and her father, due to pride, would probably resist such a
marriage. Shanti is content to
wait on the Lord and serve Him anyway He sees fit.
Though my passion is teaching missionaries from all parts of
the world to take the Gospel cross-culturally, the teaching of how to
communicate the Good News is not just for those crossing geographical
boundaries. For Christians like Shanti,
who live in the midst of unreached communities, the lessons of how to
contextualize the Gospel in one’s own family is relevant. People movements are seldom, if ever, brought about in big
evangelistic meetings. Families
and communities coming to Christ are more often a result of one person who
tells one other person about the Savior.
In societies where the Gospel is restrained because of ethnic and
religious opposition, it often the faith of one family member that becomes the
catalyst for household conversions.
Though we in missions often pray for the unreached people
groups, in that prayer may we also remember Christ followers like Shanti, who
faithfully live out their faith and share it with those in their own
communities and, indeed, among their own family.
