From white man to man of God
Doug Meland shared that when he and his wife moved to Brazil as missionaries with the Wycliffe Bible Translators, something amazing happened. They began working with the Fulnio Indians, a tribe that Doug discovered had little trust in outsiders. They simply knew him as “the white man.” This was not a term of endearment, but rather a sign that they did not trust him, a label they put on him having not found his previous encounters with foreigners to have been beneficial.
Doug and his wife spent time learning the tribe’s language, and after demonstrating their dedication to this task, they gained a certain amount of confidence. He at this point was called “the respectable white man”. Still, Doug and his wife wanted to evangelize the tribe and continue to share Christ’s love with them. They set out to continue to earn the trust of the tribe and their elders, embracing the culture and customs of the men and women to whom they wanted to minister. Over time, friendships began to grow and Doug became known as “the white Indian.”
Doug and his wife continued to faithfully serve the community in which they found themselves. They embraced their new life, and then one day something extraordinary happened, something that may have seemed small at the time, but ultimately had tremendous implications. Doug was helping a little boy wash the mud off his dirty feet. Some of the elders witnessed this act of compassion and asked, “What white man washes the feet of an Indian boy?” It was at this point that Doug was given a new name, “the man God sent us.”
The Apostle Paul declares, “Now those who have been entrusted with a charge are required to be faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). The trust that has been entrusted to us is to know and share the mystery of the Gospel, the grace of God by which men receive forgiveness and a new life based solely on the love of Christ and not on his actions, his good works or your religion.
Paul says that we have been entrusted with this gift, and that trust means that we are to share that gift, in word and deed, just as the Melands did. In the process of walking in that faith, we can be vessels of honor to help change someone else’s life, and in the end we will find that our own life has also been magnificently changed. Mother Teresa simply said, “That’s what I am. God’s pencil. A little pencil with which He writes what He likes.”
He wants to write a masterpiece with your life, you simply need to be faithful to the gift he has entrusted to you and faithful to the calling of your life.