Never Too Old…

Recently I was so inspired when I read a quote by the passionate and dedicated missions expert Dr. Ralph Winter. When they were in their 70’s, he and as it happened also his wife Roberta had both just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. You’d think at that point they would set aside their life’s work to focus on other things. Instead, this was their response, “We can see the finish line, and we’ve decided to sprint for it!”

At a recent training, I thought of Dr. Winter and his wife when an elderly man named Jared slowly stood up to speak. Grinning and excited to have the opportunity to share, Jared started talking about his life since meeting Jesus and how he is now going to others and making disciples. Radically changed, super excited and ready to go, Jared and his wife Margaret are now discipling 17 leaders. Each of these leaders has started five house churches in their area of Mt. Elgon on the border of Uganda and Kenya. When asked how old he was, Jared proudly said in Kiswahili, “Now I am 77 years old!” No need to tell you clapping and cheering broke out for the old man. The elderly are much respected here in Africa and affectionately called Mzee (mmmza – long a). At hearing Jared’s age, one young man stood up and announced to the 50 others present, “Now if this old man can do this, then we young people can do even more!”

Not to be outdone, a middle-aged woman named Salome quickly stood up. She and her husband also live in the region of Mt. Elgon.

Animated and almost busting at the seams, Salome jumped up to tell her story. “I was hearing about someone named Omondi (a disciple-maker). I thought he was a big man (meaning wealthy and important), but when I saw him, I saw he is just someone like us. He didn’t know that I didn’t know Jesus, but when I started listening to him talk, it was so easy for me and we were just there meeting together in my house in a simple way. Now I have been baptized as a follower of Jesus Christ.

“We have a lot of faith in the teachings of Jesus and the principles of house church. There are so many drunkards and we are even looking for more. So far we have brought five people out of alcohol and even my husband was one of them and now you can see he will testify that he is a follower of Jesus.

“We were just living out there somewhere and didn’t know about these teachings so I saw and heard something new. At my old age this is very important to me. My husband is sober now because of Jesus. He has tried but he has not been able to give it up. He has an older brother who also likes alcohol. He’s young but he looks very old. He drank so much alcohol we thought he would die. One day at midnight I went to his place but he looked dead just lying there. He told me, ‘If I keep drinking I will kill someone or I will die.’ We talked with him about the power of God and how God can do something. So, you can see, this old man, my husband, is now a testimony to other drunkards. For us we can clearly say we love doing house church because it is just Jesus Christ – nothing more than that. People are interested in you; they care about you; and they follow up to see how you are. I’m here to stay. And, for my husband Charles, he will tell you, there’s no way out of believing in Jesus Christ and the simple way of meeting in our house.”

Whether they are twenty, fifty or eighty years old, seeing and being with people who are running the race with unwavering faith, intently focused on the goal, is at a minimum inspiring, but also very humbling. Not to mention, they do this with all kinds of limitations – hardships beyond our imaginings – but age is definitely not one of them. I believe they actually do hear the cloud of witnesses cheering them on as they get closer to the finish line…and there’s no doubt they’ll be hearing from our Lord, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”

Hebrews 12:1 We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up.