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Stephen: In recent episodes, Chad has talked about some common objections to missions. Often these objections are rooted in the past, whether it's the injustices of a previous era or the story of a mission that failed. But some objections to missions rise out of concerns for the future.
Brooks, our question today is one that has come up more often in recent years. Daniel asks, "In going to unreached peoples, is there a danger in passing on deadly viruses?"
Brooks: Daniel, this is a really interesting question. I believe most of this question is probably prompted by some stories about what happened in earlier days when colonialism was quite strong. People would go with their nationality first and their Christian identity second. Sometimes that would happen, and too glaringly, it would happen in situations where the impact would be quite detrimental—not just for the people and their lives on this earth, but particularly their eternal security.
And then there's also the recent event of John Allen Chau and him trying to go to North Sentinel Island. The majority of the things that I've read about that young man and him going, I've really been encouraged with the way that he thought through separating himself for a number of weeks so that he would make sure he's not contagious, that he didn't carry any pathogens with him or anything that would endanger those people. Now, I disagree greatly with his methodology and what he was endeavoring—how to bring the gospel to those people. But the thought that he gave to not infecting them with disease, I thought was commendable in many, many ways. And so that's a more recent example.
I've only heard of a handful of people groups—what I would call language groups—North Sentinels being one of them. And then possibly some in the Congo and possibly some in Papua New Guinea and in West Papua, which is the other side of that island where Indonesia controls it, where there are languages that have had little or no contact. There may be some still down in the Amazon as well. I would add those in. But those places are the only places that I know of that may have language groups that have been uncontacted from the outside world. Nobody's been in there. Nobody's actually had some level of trade or communication with them. So there may be—I'm confident from the Papua New Guinea and West Papua side that there are some there, but the rest of the areas I wouldn't know enough about.
And so there's not a lot left. First, let's take this whole thought and just shrink it down to maybe ten languages that are left in the world. I'd probably lean much more towards less than five that have had no outside contact. So I'm not sure it's an issue that is as prevalent as it was maybe back 200 years ago.
And I remember when we went to a language group to survey them called the Gautamambu people. I've told this story. I don't have time to tell it in totality here, but myself and some other guys went in to survey this group and we were very cognizant of our own health before we went, being very careful. We weren't sure how untouched this group was. It turns out they'd had some contact with the outside world, but not a tremendous amount. But even the clothing that we wore, the implements that we carried—whether it's spoons, forks, or knives—those were things that were local to Papua New Guinea and they weren't from the United States. So we weren't out of place as much as we could have easily been if we weren't careful of that.
And then I'm thinking as well of when we were in Yembiyembi and just stepping into that environment and how we did bring some new beliefs and we brought some new ways of thinking to the Yembiyembi people. But they were overwhelmingly positive. I think I've shared this on another podcast, but the women were not allowed to eat the meat that their husbands would kill. Their husbands would kill a wild boar or a crocodile or something like that. And the women were banned from eating all meat that any male had killed because it would ruin his hunting ability. They could only eat meat that had naturally died—found in the jungle or something like that. And this resulted in dozens of women in Yembiyembi being anemic as they were getting ready to give birth. And we lost quite a few of them in the early days.
And it was as the gospel took root that it pushed out this poor way of thinking that was just mysticism. It was just animism that kept women in bondage and took many of their lives. And then when we had the airfield completed and we could fly the Yembiyembi out, this changed their world dramatically—jumping from the Stone Age to the 20th century to have an airplane make it in. And we could get them to a hospital that was much better than the care we could give them in the jungle. In 45 minutes, if the plane made it in time, we could get them there. And a lot of babies survived. A lot of men who got ripped up by crocodiles or by other things survived because of that.
Yes, it did change their world. It radically changed the culture, but it changed it for the better. It saved lives.
And when we were back in Yembiyembi earlier this year—we go back, we try to go back every year to check on the church—probably my best friend in the world, his name is Tarangawi. He's such a sarcastic guy. He's got a great sense of humor and he loves the Lord Jesus. And I love all three of those things. But he had a daughter when he was unsaved. We hadn't gotten to the gospel yet. Her name was Sangoxis, and she was dying. She was probably hours away from death. And by God's grace, the airplane was in the area that day, swung in, picked her up, took Tarangawi and Sangoxis and her mother out to the hospital, and they got an IV in her and they saved her life.
And we went back this time and Sangoxis was getting married. And Tarangawi told her, "You need to make sure that you go tell your uncle thank you, because you wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for your uncle." And just the way that—yes, missions does change things. It drops a large stone in a pond, so to speak, of a language group or a people group. But if it's biblical missions, if it's missions rooted in the gospel, that cares about the human body but cares about their eternal state more than it cares about their physical body, that's going to be something that will always change a language group for the better.
And I do commend John Allen Chau. I commend many people who have gone to these places and have thought through these issues. It's a wise and good thing. But we do need to reckon with the fact that missions is going to change a culture and change a people. But if it's good missions, by God's grace, it's going to change them for the better.
Stephen: To learn more about the missionary doctor David Livingstone, check out the film in our Missionary docuseries titled "The Cost of Family." It's available at missionary.com/docuseries, or you can stream via Apple TV or Amazon Prime. If you have a question for Ask Missionary, you can get in touch with us through social media, email, or drop a comment on the episode below. And don't forget to subscribe and stream our next episode on steadfast faith next week. Thanks for listening.