Mission organizations were shocked when a supposed “lost tribe” discovered in the jungle turned out to be a missing group of missionaries!
First reports indicated that the missionaries, long considered dead, were in remarkably good health, despite living in isolation with the “lost tribe”.
What really puzzled their would-be rescuers, though, was that the missionaries politely but firmly declined all offers of help.
“We’d rather stay, thanks,” they told their discoverers (competitors in a Survival Quest who encountered them in a jungle glade).
The missionaries explained that they chose to live in obscurity after encountering the primitive tribe. Much to their astonishment, members of the tribe had greeted them with shouts of “God bless you!” and “Jesus is Lord!”
The tribe’s friendly chief had shown them a water-stained New Testament, printed in a dialect similar to his own. A flood had washed it downriver into the natives’ camp.
At first, the missionaries were sceptical, thinking that without “proper instruction” the tribe’s beliefs would be a mixture of the Bible and superstition. Not so. Despite their simple lifestyle, every member had been born again, baptised in water, and filled with the Holy Spirit. Not only that: members of the tribe knew the words of Jesus by heart.
Somewhat taken aback, the missionaries tested the natives with a few questions. Did they know why there were four Gospels? No problem. As the chief saw it, each one was written for a different tribe. In fact, every tribe needed to hear the good news, he said. Wasn’t that why the Book of Acts was added?
The missionaries were mystified. Surely the chief hadn’t understood everything he had read? Of course not, he admitted. But then, who could understand the jungle in one lifetime? That’s why they read the New Testament daily, he said. It was their most precious possession.
The missionaries were in a quandary. Their cross-cultural training had prepared them for teaching the lost, but these natives had much to teach them. They took the New Testament seriously, and told their visitors that miracles had happened “many times”.
During the weeks and months that followed, it became increasingly apparent to the missionaries that the members of this “lost tribe” were in fact an isolated example of those rarest of Christian groups – practising believers. After adopting the tribe’s refreshingly uncomplicated lifestyle, the missionaries found they had much more time to meditate, and a lot more time to pray.
The story doesn’t end there. Teams of counsellors sent into the jungle after the discovery soon disappeared. Mission heads were mystified. Why would intelligent, post-modern people prefer trails to freeways, waterfalls to showers, fresh fish to frozen food, skimpy clothing to business suits, and life without cell phones?
As mission executives pondered these questions in glass cubicles, their thoughts escaped to forest canopies. On concrete sidewalks, their minds drifted to dirt trails. In tight leather shoes, they imagined themselves walking barefooted, on soft layers of fallen leaves.
Not surprisingly, the vision of many staff members changed. Resignations became frequent. Soon, middle management all but disappeared. Those who could took their superannuation packages and left town. The jungle called them, they said.
Reports from the jungle were intriguing: apparently, members of the “tribe” were sharing their possessions equally, began relating to others like they were brothers and sisters, and seemed happy to live as an extended family.
What next? Well, the latest is that those who first discovered the “lost tribe” have begun to return home as missionaries! It seems the chief has taught them so well that they know the words of Jesus as well as the natives. One said, “We need to share this new way of living with those who are lost.”
Good news for the concrete jungle!