Ten years ago, my wife and I were up to our eyeballs in diapers. Our second son was only months old, and our firstborn was still pretty fresh to walking. As I write this, we have happily returned to Diaper Country. Anna is rocking our fifth son to sleep. For some, a decade can well be a lifetime. For others, it is but an era. A season. For the Middle East and 10/40 Window, it has served a redefinition of terms.
Ten years ago, the Lord reassigned us from our ministry post in the South Pacific to the Middle East and Islamic world and provided incredible strategic clarity from the life and legacy of Hudson Taylor’s formation and leadership over the China Inland Mission. We tell the story of December 2011’s birth of FAI in deeper ways in The Frontier film and The Ultimate Conquest book (written collaboratively by the FAI family) that we released to mark our 7th anniversary three years ago in 2018. (These are all free in the FAI app.)
I write this now as we mark our 10th anniversary, which feels much quieter than we expected. We find a preference for it; the meekness of simple labor. Plowing fields. Tilling soil. Sowing seed. For the first several years of our spiritual family, FAI could fit in a minivan. Then a small living room. Now, dozens of nameless, faceless laborers are rolling up their sleeves all over the field. Local ears are hearing The Name for the first time. Foundations are being laid.[1] Houses are being built.[2] The way is being prepared[3] before the end of this age.[4] We are privileged to be part of this work.
Adoniram Judson, pioneer to Burma, once wrote: “In spite of sorrow, loss, or pain, our course be onward still; we sow on Burma’s barren plain—we reap on Zion’s hill.” As we look back over FAI's first ten years, remembering our own soiled diapers and first steps, we look forward to the next ten years with confidence in the Lord of the Harvest: “this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to everyone everywhere as a witness, and then the end will come.”[5]
As we committed ten years ago, we commit now: to exalt the worth of Jesus Christ among the unreached and unengaged until the end of the age.
One day, the sky will break. The trumpet will blast. And we’ll be with Him forever. This wicked night will soon be over.
Maranatha.
Dalton Thomas is the Founder and President of Frontier Alliance International, and co-founder of Maranatha, a global fellowship of churches and ministries. He is the Director of films and film series such as Sheep Among Wolves, Covenant and Controversy, The Frontier, and Better Friends Than Mountains. Dalton and his wife Anna live in the Golan Heights of Israel with their five sons.
[1] Romans 15:20
[2] 1 Corinthians 3:7-13
[3] Isaiah 40:3
[4] Matthew 24:!4
[5] Ibid.