This article was written by Judith, a returned NZCMS Mission Partner

A legacy takes time to create. I want to acknow­ledge all the people – local and foreign – who have inves­ted their time and lives into the South Asia area over many past gen­er­a­tions. Most never saw large amounts of fruit. It was hard work in a seem­ingly unyield­ing land. But they sowed seeds that have sprung to life during my time there.

I was the for­tu­nate one who saw the start of the harvest. I had the priv­ilege of bring­ing the young shoots forward to matur­ity. It’s now two years since the moment­ous (and very dif­fi­cult) decision to leave. It was a God thing, and I knew it. But it was very painful non­ethe­less. It was about six to eight years ago that I finally got to the point of think­ing “if I left now, this would con­tinue. There is enough momentum and people com­mit­ted to God’s ways to make it move forward”. This was after twenty-two years in the area! Some things take a long time to root. It was by being embed­ded for so long that I was able to help a generation.

From that real­isa­tion point on, I with­drew even more from day-to-day lead­er­ship and looked for new pro­jects to help support the work and the com­munity. Plant­ing a legacy is vital if the work we estab­lish is going to move into the future. NZCMS gave me the oppor­tun­ity to recently meet again with some of my key staff from those years and the reunion was a slice of heaven on earth. We cried (with joy). We laughed, talked and talked, and prayed and listened. What I heard was wonderful.

The DNA is con­tinu­ing to repro­duce. The mir­acles and heal­ings are con­tinu­ing. The times of quiet before the Lord is chan­ging lives. Bible teach­ing feeds the soul and spirit. I entreated them to con­tinue to teach, and to teach the next gen­er­a­tion to teach the gen­er­a­tion after them also. Each gen­er­a­tion must learn to pass on to the next.

When I was still there, people came to us with mixed motiv­a­tions. Now there are no eco­nomic bene­fits to coming to a meeting or for prayer. What some regarded as sec­ond­ary, are now real­ising the import­ance of. i.e. the spir­itual food that is on offer.

The min­istry I was a part of is now fin­ished. What is con­tinu­ing is a min­istry from and to the heart. Those who were on the staff are being reques­ted to create meet­ings where locals can find again the source of Living Water. Young people are wanting dir­ec­tion for their lives. Older people are wanting to hear from their Lord and have their burdens lifted. We are hearing reports of the strength of the young adults who’ve come through our teach­ing and edu­ca­tion help. They are now the teach­ers. Some have now moved into pos­i­tions of influ­ence. They are finding their roots are deep and are passing on to the next gen­er­a­tion what they have found. This is exciting.

Vil­lages are now praying for each other and seeing heal­ings and other mir­acles. It’s small and slow, but growing. What I lost was my com­munity. My people. What they have gained is a dis­tilling of motives and a real­isa­tion of what is truly import­ant. Many are waking up! What has been gained far out­weighs the losses. Please pray that this momentum will con­tinue into the future and into eternity.