Monday, February 25, 2013

Using the Sun to Spread the Son

Over the last few weeks in my Missionary Technology course, I have been learning a lot about electricity; specifically, solar electricity. Once I move into a tribe there will be no electricity available; therefore, I will need to be my own power company. The electricity will come from a solar power system. The sunlight will be turned into electricity by my solar panels and then be sent to 12 volt deep cycle batteries until I need the power. Because the electricity is going to be 12 volt Direct Current, most appliances that we commonly use in America will not be able to run since America has 120 volt Alternating Current. Probably the biggest difference you would notice if you walked through my tribal house is the outlets won’t be the traditional 3 prong style, but rather they will look like the cigarette lighter in your car. While I could go into more detail about inverters, power loss, wire sizes, and more, I will just assume that if you have questions or want to know more you will ask me, and then we can save everyone else from all the technical stuff.

The other day I had an interesting thought hit me: someday as a missionary I will be very dependent on the power of the sun to be able to do my job. Then I realized that every Christian is also 100% dependent on the power of the Son to be able to do anything. While the sun may not provide the needed power if there are a few cloudy days, the Son will never lack power. The sun will only give so many hours of sunlight each day that will be able to charge my batteries but there is no end to the power or accessibility of the Son. I find it amazing that during the creation of the world God was thinking of how we would be able to most effectively reach remote people groups with the Gospel. With solar power, we will be able to power the equipment for literacy programs, Bible lessons, and Bible translation and more; enabling us to communicate the gospel more quickly and effectively.

Using the power of the sun to spread the Glory of the Son to an unreached people group,

Dan