To the Ends of the Earth

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH: How Walk Thru the Bible is going to the ends of the earth to pick up the mantle of discipleship

Ends of the earth
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells us, “And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Ever since He mentioned the ends of the earth, Christians have been fascinated by the prospect of actually getting there. It’s so compelling and satisfying to think of the gospel finally reaching everyone, perhaps even within our lifetimes.

But as believers, we know we aren’t there yet. And we also know that isn’t the end of our mission. Jesus told His followers to make disciples of people (Matthew 28:19), not just convert them. The amazing, inspiring story of how one woman brought the gospel to unreached tribes in the jungles of Venezuela and Colombia, of course, doesn’t end with her. This past summer, Walk Thru the Bible helped to pick up the mantle of discipleship in this area of the world.

In 1944, Sophie Müller was a young, single woman living in New York City, working as a graphic designer and artist. This was her dream, what she had worked for; but God had a different plan for her life. One day during her lunch hour, she stopped to listen to a young street preacher named Jack Wyrtzen (who founded Word of Life Fellowship), and she gave her life to Christ.

For the next 50 years, Sophie ministered to the people in the jungles of Colombia and Venezuela. She first established contact with the Curipaco people, learning their language and translating the New Testament for them. She taught the villagers using Bible stories and songs, and she began to see fruit: the people were coming to Christ.

Over the course of her 50-plus years of ministry, Sophie Müller planted between 350-400 churches in the region, and an estimated 35,000 indigenous people came to Christ as a result of her service. As the churches grew, she established a Bible school on the banks of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. Sophie died in 1995.

Today
South America is a widely diverse continent with a rich culture. Along with Catholicism, there are growing evangelical and charismatic movements. There is also an array of indigenous practices and superstitions, a share of minority religions and cults, and quite a bit of personalized, hybrid belief systems. Living conditions range from extreme poverty to extravagant luxury, with most people fitting solidly in the middle class. Internal political crises in Argentina and Brazil as well as the collapse of the economy in Venezuela are impacting the surrounding countries in South America.

Alex Colombo, Walk Thru the Bible’s Regional Director for South America, said, “The entire continent of South America is in the sight of Satan. There are serious conflicts in Bolivia (political crisis), Chile (social and economic unrest), and Ecuador (political and economic instability). Venezuela is devastated, its economy in ruins, with the greatest exodus of citizens from its country ever. Argentina and Brazil both are divided internally by social, economic, and political rifts. There are credible threats of terrorism returning to Colombia and the Venezuelan jungle, and more,” he said. “In spite of all this, the heart of God is evangelism and discipleship and we, His servants, must rise and obey His call.”

The first journey
Walk Thru the Bible serves and equips under-resourced pastors and leaders around the world. We help them multiply their impact and influence—to offer the tools, training, and resources that will be most helpful, to support and strengthen their vision, and to help them make disciples who powerfully and effectively shape their society and their communities.

To that end,  Alex Colombo and Tim Blycker traveled to Bogota, Colombia, to teach and train 20 pastors and leaders in Walk Thru the Bible’s ntLIVE (our innovative, interactive big picture overview event of the New Testament) over a three-day period.

“Pastors in our region are crying out for help, just like the man from Macedonia in Paul’s vision in Acts 16,” said Alex Colombo. “They are asking us to please keep training them. They are asking us to please keep bringing God’s Word to them, especially for children’s and youth ministry, as well as in general Bible conferences,” he said.

These 20 pastors can now take ntLIVE to their churches and to their communities to make disciples. Because Walk Thru the Bible helps local pastors adapt our events and resources to their own context, culture, and language, more people in their communities can experience and understand the Word of God.

The second journey
After this three-day training, Alex and Tim flew 90 minutes east to Puerto Iñírida by the Colombia-Venezuela border near the Orinoco River. Then, the next leg of their journey was a five-hour bongo boat ride down the Orinoco to the village in the Venezuelan jungle (on the border of Colombia) to teach 500 indigenous believers from the Curripaco, Cubeo, and Puinave tribes. This is the same area where Sophie ministered, as well as some of the same tribes she ministered to.

This group of 500 believers comes from eight different communities in Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil, and they meet together four times every year for Bible study and teaching. Usually, each leader is assigned to teach on a particular Bible verse, which helps the group get through more teaching. They are first- and second-generation believers with only the New Testament translated into their languages. Some key elements of discipleship have missed the mark since they are not equipped with biblical resources or Bible study helps. So, they asked Alex and Tim to teach on holiness and purity during this quarterly meeting.

As each group of believers arrived at the village where the teaching was going to be held, they waited in their bongo boats until everyone else had arrived. Then, in a big ceremony, they all went up on land together, singing and carrying a flag to represent their community. The people from each of the communities walked in a line with their flag. The flags were planted in the ground near the huts where everyone would be staying.

The teaching
Tim and Alex taught Walk Thru the Bible’s otLIVE, Personal Holiness in Times of Temptation, and Love, Sex and Lasting Relationships. To show how desperately these believers needed teaching on holiness and purity, Tim shared a specific story. The leaders had told Alex and Tim that the youth were getting pregnant without being married. So, as they were preparing the materials to teach, their focus was on teaching the youth—at least, that was what they were planning to do.

But Tim realized during his teaching that “they did not understand the Spanish terms or the ideas of purity and holiness. Alex and I quickly knew that we were not only teaching on the subject of purity and holiness for the youth, but for the whole church.” A Sunday school teacher for almost 30 children told Tim, “I have never heard such clear teaching on this subject.”

Full circle
“I am struck by the work that God did through a fragile, single, physically weak but spiritually strong young woman who had an entrepreneurial spirit and was passionate about the souls and the Word of God,” said Alex. “Sophie Müller gave her life for these same tribes that we taught, and she planted many churches as well as schools for children in many of these same communities where we shared Walk Thru the Bible resources. The Word of God brought freedom and righteousness to these people. The current leaders are in such precarious conditions, but they are so eager to share what they learned about what changed their lives. And being able to be a part of the continuity of Sophie’s work through the training and instruction of those leaders through Walk Thru the Bible is of great encouragement and motivation to us to continue going regularly to bring them even more blessing from God,” he said.

“I also returned broken by the urgent priority of establishing a ministerial training center near Puerto Iñírida to train the missionary pastors. These pastors will travel down the rivers, serving and teaching Walk Thru the Bible courses for those 350-400 churches, and evangelizing and discipling the new communities that are forming in the area and have never heard the Word of God,” Alex said.

“I think that just as it happened with Sophie, only eternity will reveal the impact we can make in this part of the planet with the ministry, resources, and teaching of Walk Thru the Bible.”

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