No Longer a Slave to Fear…

Jon Wood (pictured bottom right) with his family in early 1964

Culture shock—a feeling of discomfort, disorientation, or distress someone has when experiencing a new culture—is something many missionaries have experienced. But how should we handle culture shock, especially when mixed with extreme fear? Jon Wood, Jesus for Asia President, shared this short story of how his mother handled it during his family’s time as missionaries in Papua New Guinea in the mid 1960s:

Today I asked my father if he had ever had culture shock. He told me that he never had culture shock, but his wife (my mom) did. My dad would drive seven miles to go to work all day in the hospital, but he left my mom with me and my sister. I was about six months old, and my sister was about three years old.

Every day, mostly naked warriors would go screaming down the road out in front of our house. My mom was scared spitless. And I didn’t know this, but I would hide under the bed, my sister would hide under the bed, and my mom would just be terrified.

One day she said, “You know, I didn’t come here to hide from the locals.”

So she gathered her courage, singing one of her favorite hymns: “Anywhere with Jesus”; she surrendered her life to God; got the two little kids (with me in her arms), and went out to meet these people. The big scary men were so excited, so happy that a foreigner would come and talk to them, that they surrounded her, and they loved her, and she started a branch Sabbath School with those people that eventually became a large, strong church.

She had so much joy in the place where her fear was holding her down. So I am proud of my mom for surrendering, for not allowing fear to control her, for being willing to lay down her life to fulfill God’s call. It reminds me of the song that says, “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.”

Our prayer is that the spirit of courage for Christ is revived in all our hearts.