When I stepped out of the small airplane that had delivered me to the Amazon jungle village, it was like stepping back a thousand years in time. About the only immediate indication that I might not be in a different millennium were the odd pairs of Adidas running shorts worn by a few of the young men. Other than that, these people with bows and spears looked like they could have stepped out of the Stone Age. It was like time had forgotten them.

But God hadn’t. The timeless Word of God entered that jungle several decades ago when followers of Jesus had dared to enter their world, learn their language and walk their trails with them. Today the transformation it has effected is nothing short of miraculous.

In years past, wife stealing, deadly drunken brawls, infanticide and revenge killings were all a part of “normal” life and death. An unwanted newborn baby would simply be taken outside the village and left to die, its mouth stuffed with leaves. Disputes were addressed through violent confrontations that could result in fractured skulls, broken limbs or death.

Today God’s truth is transforming the lives of these people who, for centuries, were dominated by fear and death. To see their faces filled with wonder and tears as they encounter God’s ancient truth and to watch their zeal in taking that truth to neighboring villages is pure joy! (You can read about it in “The World Calls It Foolish.”)

But it has taken nearly four decades of faithful, tear-filled sowing and watering. Scores of workers and hundreds of combined years of labor have ultimately resulted in the timeless Word of God transforming men and women whom time had apparently left behind. But it might never have happened were it not for people like you — people who prayed, people who gave, people who never gave up.

There are still more than 2 billion people in the world today who, for all intents and purposes, might as well still be living in the Stone Age, for they have still never heard how God changed the world 2,000 years ago. What will you do about it?