Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.— Matthew 28:19
Not long ago, I listened to a missionary’s report. After seminary, she had left for a small island nation. She is still there.
There were no impressive numbers and no dramatic breakthroughs, only someone staying in a difficult place because she believed the Lord had sent her.
I kept wondering what makes a person go that far, and then stay.
When we hear the Great Commission, we tend to fix on one word: go. But Jesus gives the going a purpose, which is to make disciples. Cross the sea or cross the street, and the calling is the same. We help people know Him and learn to follow Him.
Jesus frames that command with a declaration and a promise: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” and “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:18, 20).
We do not have to know how everything will turn out. We need to know who sends us, and who goes with us.
Mission begins there. “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you,” Jesus said (John 20:21). Before anyone packs a suitcase or learns another language, God has already moved toward the world in love (John 3:16).
In November 1839, John Williams arrived at Erromango, an island in what is now Vanuatu. He had already spent more than twenty years serving in the South Pacific. That day, he and his companion James Harris were killed on the shore at Dillon’s Bay.
His work there seemed to end before it began. Others followed, and some of them also lost their lives. Among missionaries, Erromango came to be known as “Martyr’s Island.” Yet over time, the gospel took root.
In 2009, 170 years after Williams’s death, his descendants traveled to Erromango at the invitation of the descendants of those who had killed him. Islanders gathered in song. Forgiveness was asked for, and given.
The bay received a new name: Williams Bay.
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.— John 12:24
Williams never saw that gathering. He never heard those songs.
We read his story knowing what happened next. He had to answer God without knowing.
So does the missionary on that small island.
Scripture gives us a glimpse of where this story is going: “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation” standing before God’s throne (Revelation 7:9). Until then, much of the work stays quiet. A conversation. A prayer offered again when nothing seems to change.
Not all of us will board a plane. But we can pray, give, encourage, and help raise those who will go. Those who send share in the work of those who leave.
So what makes a person go that far, and then stay? It isn’t knowing how things will end. Williams didn’t know, and neither does she. What they carry is a word spoken on a mountain in Galilee: “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).
A bay waited 170 years for a new name. We may never know what grows from the next faithful step.
Williams never saw the harvest. The One who sent him never left the field.
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