When telling us about his journey from South Africa to America to serving with Wycliffe in Panama, Keith Forster repeatedly said, “This is the God we serve.” How else do you explain an airline providing Keith a ticket when there was no money to buy one as he was trying to get to Columbia for his first summer assignment with Wycliffe? Or what about a whole jungle village of Kuna people in Panama kicking the Forsters out one day to welcoming them with open arms and promising to provide housing for their family the next? And there would be no other explanation for the son of a Kuna village chief deciding to anger his family to assist Keith in the translation of Scripture and pastor a Kuna church.
Hearing Keith and Wilma Forster’s story last week in Panama has confirmed in me the truth that we serve a God who specializes in the impossible. I’m reminded of a plaque I saw hanging in the home of Ralph and Marilynn Toliver, missionaries in Peru: The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. Wilma and Keith would be the first to tell you that God called them both very specifically to the ministry of Bible translation. And though there were days when it seemed that God had called them to something impossible, by his grace, he always provided just what they needed to continue.
I heard story after story the past two weeks, both in Panama and Peru, which give true validity to the statement, “This is the God we serve.” And by leaning on that truth, Keith, Wilma, and countless others, have had the opportunity to affect lives for eternity by being a part of translating Scripture into the heart languages of minority people groups all across the world.
This truly is, the God we serve.
