“But isn’t it dangerous?” The young woman in the business suit stared at me in consternation. “Where you’re going as a missionary, there are venomous snakes, communist rebels, and drug-resistant malaria. You’ll be three days from any medical facilities. God would never ask you to put yourself in such danger. Isn’t this wrong?”

My heart cried out silently, Do the ten thousand or more Batangan deserve to live in this kind of danger without even heaven to look forward to while I live in comfort and supposed safety?

Out loud, I replied, “God has unmistakably called me. If He calls me to this work, then He will protect me. I am safest where God puts me. And if He chooses to let me die for Him, my only prayer is that the Batangan will be saved because of it.”

She shook her head and walked away muttering, “It’s just too dangerous.” As I watched her go, my mind drifted back to Nate Saint and the four other young men who were murdered on a sandbar in the jungle of Ecuador by the people they were trying to reach. Their death seemed pointless at the time, and yet thousands of people in that tribe were saved and hundreds of missionaries were inspired to go out as a result of their testimony. Throughout the history of Christianity, it has always been this way. As Tertullian said, “The blood of martyrs is seed.”

I will not presume on God. I will use every means available to protect myself as I go to the Batangan. But if my life is required in order to reach them, then I will gladly give it. “Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

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