Passing the torch from one missionary to another, part 2

A few days ago I received an email from Papua New Guinea, sections of which I’ve abbreviated and included here:

For years now we’ve been wondering how to contact Dick McLellan. I was personally challenged into mission work through Dick’s testimony back in 1978 when I was 22 years old and a student at Word of Life Bible Institute in Australia. I remember thinking that if God could use a “red-headed, freckled, middle-aged Aussie” in the harsh Ethiopian sun, then He might be able to use me as well. I knew without a doubt that God wanted me to go into missions.

Then Dick spoke to us from Rom 10:13-15 … “How can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?”

How will they hear unless someone is sent! As a young believer I had always expected some kind of a “call”… but I never got one. I learned later that the call is for salvation (v14 above), once we are called, God is able to “send” His people. I saw the need and God sent me.

After Dick challenged us through his experiences with the Bodi people and the Word of God, we entered training in 1979. In 1986 we came to PNG and have been here for 24 years.

We’ve never had the opportunity to see or chat with Dick since that day and would love to contact him again and encourage him in how the Lord has worked in our lives. It would mean so much to us to encourage this elderly Christian statesman and let him know how his ministry in the 1970’s has had an impact on the lives of Papua New Guineans for the last 24 years.

I was doing a search for him on the internet and your web page popped up. I did read the sample chapter from “With Two Hands” and was encouraged again, after all these years, to hear about how the Gospel is going out in Ethiopia.

It was my joy to pass along contact information for Dick McLellan, but even greater joy to ponder how our lives and words—all of us—may be used in ways we never even realize in the furthering of the kingdom of God.