Daily Devotional for Friday, March 20

The First Guest List

“When one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” Luke 14:15.

In 2013, we completed the construction of our village house. The Yetfa people graciously set aside a piece of land, donated their precious ironwood trees, carried the heavy logs from the jungle, and helped build the rumah misi or mission house. When we moved in, we had an open house and invited the whole village to celebrate all God had done. We flew out with several large bags of rice, many boxes of ramen, vegetables, meat and seasonings. We held a village-wide feast to dedicate the house and ministry to the Lord.

The day before, children began bringing large bundles of firewood to our yard. The men stacked the wood in preparation for the cooking fires the next day. The mamas began cooking at dawn the day of the feast and cooked until mid-afternoon. Large tubs of rice, noodles, greens and meat and leaf bundles of their starchy staple were set on our porch. Everyone went off to bathe and gather their plates and children. When everything was ready, we clanged two metal tubes together to signal it was time to come eat.

The whole village gathered on our porch. We rehearsed how they had prayed, and God brought us to Papua. We talked about building the house and all those who came from near and far to help. Everyone was excited at all the Lord had done. As we clapped and cheered and sent up hallelujahs, we looked around at the people group to whom God was giving His Word. Talk about an emotional moment! The Yetfa people were learning about the kingdom of Heaven, and God’s invitation was wide open to them. One by one the Yetfa trusted Christ. We knew from that time on, we would feast with those brothers and sisters in God’s presence for eternity.

THOUGHT

“Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God”  (Luke 14:15).

Kelli Reynolds