Too small - again

Another day dawns.  The air feels heavy and uncomfortable - a storm is moving in, you guess.   You, along with some of your teammates, decide to visit a friend - an older man in the village who has shown unusual kindness and concern for the missionaries.   On your way to his house, you see the dog-killer, now battered and bloodied, but thankfully alive.   Some of the other missionaries are visiting with her.   You sit there with the old man and try to concentrate on what he is saying, while only yards away, the woman is pleading with the missionaries to care for her children.  They speak gently to her, assuring her they will care for her wounds and try to help her get well.   She refuses to be satisfied until they promise to take her children.

Three men - two of them strangers you've never seen - walk into the village and head for the woman's house.   The old man stands up and you all follow him to where you can see the unfolding scene.  The strangers lift the woman onto a makeshift stretcher.  "She cannot die in this village," the old man says.   You wonder why, but ask no questions as you see the woman lying so still and weak.   She's going to die.   They think she's going to die, you realize and the thought hits you like a ton of bricks.   No!   She can't die now!   She hasn't heard the gospel!   We haven't told her yet.   We still don't know the language well enough.   But that's why we came - so that people wouldn't die without hearing about Jesus.   And your mind relentlessly runs over all those times since coming to the village when you were "relaxing", or distracted, or just not motivated to study the language and culture.  If you had just put in more hours studying, maybe you could have started teaching God's Word by now.  And then this woman could have heard.  For a brief instant you wish you were back in America, where you wouldn't have to see people dying without ever having a chance to hear the gospel.   You feel helpless, guilty, overwhelmed.  Everything in you urges you to do something, but what to do, you do not know.

The men begin to walk, carrying the stretcher between them.  Time seems to stand still as you watch this woman, with whom you have come to share the gospel, on her death bed.  Eternity looms before her.  Sudden tears choke you.   You can't even think well enough to formulate a prayer.  The closest thing to a prayer right now is the anguished silent cry, "God, please...I'm too small.   I need You!"   The woman disappears from view.   You may never see her again.