Reaching the Unreachable
God has uniquely gifted all of us to be active participants in His Great Commission. He placed two groups of people on a collision course: our engineers who have given up lucrative careers to develop this grassroots technology, and a group of men called by God to reach the unreachable in a 'hot and sandy' location.
Imagine that you're standing in a dry and barren landscape where sand and rocks take the place of any green vegetation. Just down the dirt road, there is a city that is off limits. The people that live there are hostile to the Gospel, western influence, and would likely kill you on the spot if you were approaching their area.
That city is home to a hostility that we can't even fathom. We simply lack the frame of reference to even paint a picture of what goes on in this place. Yet God tells us in Scripture that these people are made in His image, and He wants them to hear the Good News.
A New Idea
A couple of years ago, a small group of guys came to visit ITEC. They had heard about the UAV testing that our engineering team had been doing and had an exciting idea: they wanted to use this tool in a 'hot and sandy' location to drop Bibles. This area, as mentioned above, was truly unreachable. Even if you snuck in, there was no potential for friendly contact.
God has uniquely gifted all of us to be active participants in His Great Commission. He placed two groups of people on a collision course: our engineers who have given up lucrative careers to develop this grassroots technology, and a group of men called by God to reach the unreachable in a 'hot and sandy' location. This was a connection that only God could orchestrate.
The ITEC engineers and these men (not specifically identified for their safety) trained for close to a month at our headquarters in Florida. They went over the assembly, programming, maintenance, and mission planning for the UAV system before heading out into the field. This group of guys became the first group trained and sent out with the ITEC UAV System. This was a similar training approach that we recently undertook in Ecuador, which you can read more about here.
To the Field
After the completion of the training, this group deployed to that remote location. They were armed with ITEC UAV wings, SD Cards loaded with Biblical content, and solar-powered Audio Bibles. They would fly multiple missions a day dropping these materials over the lines they couldn't cross. Isaiah 55:11 says, "so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." What a promise that the success of these missions dropping digital Bibles is in the hand of our all-powerful God.
If you haven't watched the Desert Rose video already, I would encourage you to do so. It could be easy to watch this video as entertainment or something to consume, like a news story. Remember that this video contains actual footage of missions with the actual people living out their lives in obedience to their calling. Please continue to pray for these men, for God to continue to bring fruit from these missions, and for wisdom for ITEC as we continue to press on in the development of tools like this to open doors to the Gospel.