By Jeremy Hambrice, BMA Missionary to Papua New Guinea
From the time I was five, all I could ever think about was playing baseball in the big leagues. For me, baseball wasn’t just a nonchalant game of toss in the yard with Dad. No, it was thousands of swings in the batting cage, hundreds of games and practices every weekend, all year long. It was all or nothing—Big Leagues or Bust.

Now, I grew up in a great home with fantastic parents who were incredibly supportive. They were also very faithful to teach me God’s word at home and take me to church. As a result, I heard and understood the gospel at a young age and trusted in Jesus to save me. But when I look back, I can see that my dream of playing in the big leagues overshadowed almost everything else in life. As I chased that dream, it never once occurred to me that God could possibly be doing something else in the world other than helping me live out my own purpose, write my own story, and achieve my own dreams.

After high school, I took a full-ride baseball scholarship to Southern Arkansas University where I worked really hard for three years. During the summer after my junior year, I was certain God was making all my dreams come true—I finally got THE CALL. When I picked up the phone, I received an invitation to leave everything behind and come play baseball for the New York Mets. This was the call I had been waiting for my whole life!

After answering that call and seeking to live out that dream, I crossed paths with a guy named Hatley. Hatley knew about the thousands of unreached language groups around the world who had yet to hear the good news and wanted to see missionaries sent to them. When I met up with Hatley during the offseason, he sat me down and in one fell swoop, he showed me God’s heart for the nations from Genesis to Revelation. It was like I was hearing the Bible for the first time. I was in awe as I heard over and over both promises and commands from God about his desire to reach all people. Then, when Hatley took me to the book of Revelation, I saw that at the end of the story there will literally be people from all tongues, tribes, and nations standing before the throne of God and worshiping the Lamb. I realized that rather than being filled with my baseball trophies, Heaven would be filled with people from all over the world who had been bought by Jesus’ own blood! When it’s all said and done, it will be Jesus’ name and not mine that will be chanted by the crowd as every knee in heaven and on earth bows and proclaims that he is Lord.

Then, when Hatley showed me the state of the world, I saw that more than HALF of the language groups on the planet have yet to be reached with the life saving message of Jesus…and they will not be reached unless someone goes and tells them.

As the magnitude of what Hatley shared began to sink in, I felt myself being swept up into something much bigger and much greater than myself and what I was pursuing. The CALL I had received from the big leagues was beginning to sound like a faint whisper compared to THE CALL that had already been clearly given in God’s word to ALL believers–“Go and make disciples.”

In that moment, I decided to leave the game of baseball behind, and my wife, Mandy, and I went all in as we pursued a much greater dream. We began to study the map to find out where these unreached people without the gospel lived. That eventually led us to the country of Papua New Guinea—home to 800 distinct language groups (the majority of which are untouched with the gospel). My wife and I and two other couples eventually settled in to live with a people group called the Wantakia.

But there were two problems. First, no one from the outside had ever learned the Wantakia language, and secondly, as a result, it had never been put in a written form. By God’s grace alone, over the course of about three years we learned their language and created an alphabet for it. We then began to teach the Wantakia how to read their native language and started the process of translating the Scriptures into it. That led us to the moment we had come there for in the first place. The time came when we were finally able to share the good news with the Wantakia! As a result, many trusted in Christ, became a part of his family, and the church was born!

Imagine if I would have been so consumed with my own purposes and dreams that I missed out on God’s? What if while playing for some baseball team I had sat on the sidelines in the game that truly matters? He didn’t need me to accomplish any of this, but I’m sure glad I have the privilege of playing a small part. Were there sacrifices and struggles along the way? Absolutely! But was it all worth it? You bet.
So what about you? Are you pursuing a “dream” that doesn’t line up with God’s? We are all CALLED to join Jesus in his mission. Some of us are called to be goers—taking the gospel where it’s never been. Some are called to be senders—standing behind those who go by praying and giving. If you are a believer, you are already on the team. Now, it’s time to get in the game.