Privileged?

Every Thursday night I try to make it along to Moore Women - a night put on for women who are students or wives of students at Moore College. Each week there is a guest speaker who speaks about a different topic. Last night the topic was "Blue skies, coconut trees and Jesus". It was about the Christian work that is happening in Tonga.

Now, I don't usually feel that enthusiastic about going to talks about mission work overseas and I must admit that last night was no different. I'm not exactly sure why. As a Christian I should be interested and keen to find out what God is doing overseas but to my shame, I generally don't feel like that. Maybe it's because I don't know much about other countries so find it hard to relate to what they are talking about (unless they have maps I don't know where most countries are!) or maybe it's because I have not desire for Dave and I to be missionaries overseas or maybe it's because I'm afraid that as I listen to missionaries speak, God will challenge my heart or even put a desire in my heart to do gospel work overseas.

Anyway, I always try to go because it is important to support missionaries and whenever I do hear missionaries speak they are often the most encouraging evenings. And last night was no different. A lady from Tonga whose husband is doing a PhD at Moore College spoke about Tonga and the challenges of doing ministry there. She said that the main Bible college in Tonga (Sia'atoutai Theological College) teaches that the Bible is just a book of made up stories and that Jesus is just a mythical figure. Her husband studied a degree there when he was just 17 and left an atheist. He then came to Australia to study science, because Christianity had given him no answers about life so he thought he would find answers in science. While studying at Sydney uni, he met a guy who invited him to a Unichurch where he heard the Bible taught truthfully for the first time. He then became a Christian and has since then has studied at Moore college and lectured back at the Bible college in Tonga. So amazing!

Another lady also spoke. She and her husband were missionaries in Tonga and are involved in the work of the Langham Partnership ( http://www.langhampartnership.org/) which helps to equip pastors and teachers in the majority world by providing literature, training in preaching and scholarships for attending Bible colleges abroad. It was so encouraging to hear about their work and how people are being are able to access resources such as commentaries in order to learn more about the Bible and be able to teach it to others. We were shown a DVD and a man from Africa who is on a scholarship program spoke about that fact that he would need to work 50 years in Africa to afford one year tuition at the Bible college in Cambridge yet through the scholarship he can be trained for free.

Well, hearing about the lack of resources (including Bibles) that Christians in other countries have, makes me feel ashamed and grateful at the same time. We are privileged in Australia. Most of us have Bibles in our homes (whether read or unread). Most Christians would have a collection of Christian books and music apart from their Bibles (of which they often have more than one), if not a whole library! We are able to access good teaching week to week as there are many faithful Bible-teaching churches here. We are able to attend Bible studies where we have resources to use to study the Bible. We really do take it all for granted. It made me think once again - are we really privileged? I think we often pay the price for being privileged. We often do not appreciate the resources we have or the people that teach us. Instead of going to church joyfully to hear God's word we go thinking "I hope the sermon will be interesting today". We don't treasure our Bibles. It makes me wonder whether I would read my Bible more and treasure God's words more if it was only on loan to me for a short time or if I hadn't always had it. I pray that we the privileged in Australia would live as the unprivileged - grateful to have God's Word in our hands and joyful in reading it.