“Who do you say that I am?”

I feel the words reverberate through the millennia, from when Christ asked Peter, traveling through time and straight out of the lips of the hurting elderly patient sitting across me in a village on the edge of the Amazon jungle. “Who is Jesus to you?” Her reply when I asked if she knew Jesus. We sit in my “clinic,” crafted days before on the back porch of the church’s Sunday school rooms. She was my last patient of the entire trip. We had already attempted to address the lengthy constellation of aches and pains that a life of hard work and multiple unfortunate accidents had stamped upon her ailing form, paying particular attention to the presence of chest pain, a pain she nonchalantly threw in amidst the long list of arthritic pains. I sought to clarify the features of the chest pain, each question met with a story, and the pain sounded suspiciously cardiac in nature. I handed out a card for the medical foundation that could offer her further testing and walked her through how to take the nitroglycerin we gave her if needed. And finally, painstakingly, arrived at the most important question of all: did she know Jesus?

This trip was like no other for me. I realized when I returned home that my first mission trip ever was in 1999. A fresh-faced sophomore in college, part of a trip through Teen Mania where we used a drama act to tell the story of the gospel. I have not been able to go yearly since then but was blessed to return to foreign missions three years ago through Global Health Outreach and the CMDA. Across the years, even as recent as last year, I always knew our main work had been sowing. Working to share the knowledge and heart of our Savior.

But this year, a praying church had gone before us, evidenced by the massive aerial view photo of the town displayed on the wall behind the pulpit, the aim of their prayers week after week before our arrival.

This year, unlike any other, if a patient wasn’t a member of the church already, the most common reply to my question, “Do you know Jesus?” was, “Yes, I have heard of Him, but can you tell me more?” How my heart leapt each time I was asked! This is what we came for! It was indeed a year for reaping, as many chose to follow Him after hearing more about Him. For my month’s supply of ranitidine or Tylenol would most definitely come to an end, but, oh!, if I could lead them to the Well that never runs dry!

But this final patient of the trip, Maria, the one with the hurting heart, caught me completely by surprise when she took the now-expected-reply one step further and asked me: who is He to me?

I sat completely in awe of this massive question, my mind racing to even attempt to describe who Jesus is to me. I first thanked her for asking me! And she replied that she truly wanted to know and understand. I don’t even remember now what I actually said; I recall choosing to express how He was my Joy, my Strength, my very Life. She explained that her son belonged to the church and had been asking her to come. She had been thinking about accepting Christ all day, and, yes - she was ready to now. As my translator helped lead her to the feet of the Savior, I realized how this year us providers were the final stop. They had already been through prayer with church members before they were triaged and seeing us, so by the time they got to us, they had spent most of the day reflecting on what they had heard. I have an entire new appreciation for what it means to see a field ripe for harvest!

Who is He to me?

I have spent much time since this precious new sister asked trying to wrap my mind around a sufficient answer for this question - how can one ever adequately describe my Lord and Savior? I have a new appreciation of what it may mean for Him to be our All in all (Ephesians 1:23). The One who is in all things and through all things (Colossians 1:15-17). The One in Whom I live and move and have my being (Acts 17:28). How my heart sings knowing I am gifted whatever time on this earth remains discovering even more intimately who He is to me. And my prayer is this question draws each of you in as well, for no journey on this earth can compare to this.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.”

Colossians‬ ‭1:15-20‬ ‭NRSV‬‬

-Mary Poston