From the Editor
“Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10) A well-known missions song challenges, “May all who come behind us find us faithful.” Encountering that song first while serving as missionary in Bolivia, I misheard it as “may all who come before us find us faithful.” The image in my mind was Hebrews 12:1: “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” The witnesses evoked here are the roll call of faith in the prior chapter—Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses—cheering on a new generation of believers from the bleachers of a celestial coliseum. Growing up a missionary kid in jungle areas of Colombia and Venezuela, my own heroes of faith included pioneer missionaries like my parents and their peers, men and women with steel in their backbones who could—and did—ride a mule up the Andes or face down a rioting mob with a Bible in one hand and God’s love in their hearts and on their lips. They were not perfect; no human being is. But their faithfulness and unswerving commitment decade after decade in often extremely primitive circumstances taught this small daughter of American missionaries what courage, love, and sacrifice were all about. Getting to know BCM missionaries and volunteers around the world has felt like coming home, because here too I have encountered a legacy of faithfulness. This issue celebrates that faithfulness. Faithfulness in long decades of steadfast service to God and others. Faithfulness in preaching God’s Word in the face of persecution and hardship. In twenty short pages, we can only begin to tell the stories of BCM’s own heroes of faith. But in this small glimpse, may you—like I—be challenged to emulate that faithfulness. May those who come behind us, along with those who have come before and are now among that great cloud of witnesses, find us faithful as we run our race in steadfast and unswerving service to Jesus Christ. Jeanette Windle Editor, BCM World
