The People Waiting for You.

They were in their late 60s and older, and they came out in the cold, hungry to know God.

Every week, our Village Ministry team travels to villages to share the gospel, pray for people, and encourage local believers. This week, we held an Encounter God Retreat (EGR) in one of those villages.

What caught our attention was who showed up.

A good number of those who attended were elderly. These are people who could have spent the day resting at home. It was cold, and no one would have blamed them for staying under a blanket. But they came anyway.

It warms our hearts to see people so eager to know God. Yet seeing them also broke our hearts.

Think about it. They have lived a whole lifetime, through decades of seasons, harvests, losses, and celebrations, and only now are they encountering God. They were waiting to hear the gospel and to experience the Father’s love, but it took years for salvation to reach them.

There are people on the other side of your obedience

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?”
Romans 10:14-15 (NIV)

Someone in a village like this one is waiting for someone to say yes. They may not know it yet, and they may not have words for it. But there is a heart waiting, ready to receive.

And maybe it’s not just people waiting for us on the other side. Jesus is there too. He has been waiting for these faces, these stories, and these hearts all along. When we say yes, we aren’t just walking toward the people who need Him. We’re walking toward Him, and He is already there, waiting for our obedience.

That’s why we keep going back. One visit opens the door, but it’s the repeated visits, the shared meals, and the relationships that make room for the gospel to be heard and received.

The generation we met this week may have waited a long time, but we can change that for the generations that follow, if we feel the urgency of the gospel.

How you can be part of it

• Pray for the villages we visit and for the elderly who are encountering God for the first time.
• Give to help sustain the ministries of Within Reach Global as we approach our 30th year of serving in Thailand and beyond.
• Go. Come see what God is doing through a short-term mission trip, or ask God where your yes is needed.

Who is waiting for you? Isn’t Jesus worthy of our yes?