By Mary Fauldsstaff writer
February 2011 – Living by faith. It is a statement so easily said, yet so hard to follow. Letting God lead and just accepting His will for one’s life can feel like the blind leading the blind. It seems dangerous and scary, full of unknowns. However, that is because we see only a small part of God’s infinite picture. Paul Richardson, the Southeast Asia field director for Mustard Seed International, said he hopes his ministry shows American Christians how to truly live by faith, regardless of the consequences.
AFA Journal: What is Mustard Seed International?
Paul Richardson: MSI is an organization that raises funds in order to help nationals, especially in the developing world, to start and maintain ministries without a lot of middlemen involved. A big part of my role is finding and seeking out where God is really working in Southeast Asia, and searching for men and women who live with a passion, with a vision, for some sort of unique ministry, with some sort of a dream, a strategy for advancing the gospel.
What makes MSI unique is that most of what we invest our energy and planning into is children’s ministry, Christian education, orphanage work and youth ministry. I’d say 80% of our funding that is given to MSI is going toward young people in places like Indonesia, India and the Sudan.
AFAJ: What is your role with MSI?
PR: My greatest passion is advancing Christian education. In 2001, I opened a Christian school [in Indonesia] and that school now has about 450 students. It is also a lab school where we train teachers. Our dream is to show Indonesians what a high quality education looks like that raises up leaders and people of influence who have a positive effect on their world.
We are working in two domains. One is trying to strengthen people’s Christian faith, and at the same time we are pretty relentless in the education realm, to serve them and help them and bring God’s love to them. A big part of my role is figuring out where there are communities that need schools and then meeting with community elders to tell them what we do and ask them if they want a Christian school in their village. A lot of these areas are primarily Muslim, but on most occasions they are very interested and open and inviting us in to start a school. I am finding that education is an area that a lot of people are feeling desperate for and they are really looking for leadership and help.
AFAJ: You recently wrote a book about your ministry in Southeast Asia. Could you tell our readers some of the highlights?
PR: My book is called A Certain Risk: Living Your Faith at the Edge. One of the main themes that runs throughout the book is a portrayal of the life of faith as a series of moments when God calls us to come to the edge of a cliff. Behind us is a realm of safety and familiarity. It is our past; it is what we know well and where we feel comfortable. In front of us is mystery and danger. And God is there beyond the edge of the cliff, beckoning us and saying, “I want you to take this jump, and jump into My arms, and trust Me to catch you and carry you to a higher place.” But there is a moment of paralysis and fear when we consider what God is calling us to. I attempt to describe what life is like on the other side of the jump, when we choose to listen and trust the voice of God, even knowing there is a certain risk, a danger.
AFAJ: It would seem like you are taking a big risk with yourself and your family as Christians in one of the most predominantly Muslim areas in the world. Have you had difficulty being accepted by Indonesian nationals?
PR: I have to be culturally in tune. I have to speak the language well. I have to know where I am and who I am talking to. I have to be very shrewd and careful. There are
certain places where setting up a Christian school would never work, but there are a surprising number of Islamic communities that would take a Christian school with open arms. I don’t spend a lot of time with places that are resistant. Basically what I’m saying is the teaching that Jesus gave of coming into a community and speaking peace, and if they receive you, stay and bless them. But if they reject you, shake the dust off your feet and go find somewhere else.
We tend to have a lot of perceptions about the Islamic world based on what we get through the media, through the news. But when you are actually in a place like Indonesia, the reality is that there are a lot of people who actually care far more about their children’s future than they do about their religious convictions. For this reason, we’ve found a lot of communities that are very happy to have us. They guard their Christian school. They want to protect it and make sure it is well taken care of, because they see how that school is giving their children a future that they may have never had.
It seems like everywhere, in every ministry that we’ve started, there has been someone, some group that has been extremely antagonistic, working to bring division. In one ministry, for example, we had only been open for a few months and we had an open house and invited all the children and their parents. The building was packed with people and the leader of the mosque showed up. He stood up in the crowd and said, “Don’t you all know that this is a Christian program and we’re Muslim? We need to shut this down and expel these people out of our community.” A father stood up and said, “But this program is the greatest thing that has happened to our community.” Basically all the parents stood up in the face of this imam, and he eventually backed down.
AFAJ: It sounds like God is really opening doors there. How has your faith or the faith of others who serve with you been tested?
PR: Let me tell you where I am right now. I have a team leader (These are all nationals I’m talking about.) who went to the beach with his wife and children several months ago. When they got there, three young ladies were struggling in the water, total strangers to him. He went out and saved two of them, but by the time he went out for the third, he was so exhausted – and the rip tide was strong – that he went under and drowned. This man was one of my closest friends, a real partner in ministry.
Another lady who started a community center in a very poor part of the city, a very powerful ministry, discovered she has colon cancer. Another one of our key teachers is on kidney dialysis. This kind of thing is going on and on at a really abnormal rate. That’s not even taking into account my own bouts with dengue fever and malaria. My children have had a lot of health issues as well. It has happened enough that I believe this is spiritual warfare. I think whenever we as believers are doing something on the forward edge that is changing people’s lives, especially children, I believe Satan takes note of that and he comes after us full force.
AFAJ: How can people get involved in helping Mustard Seed International?
PR: Well, definitely they can go to the website at www.mustardseed.org (phone: 800-943-2484) and look at the different ministries that are there and be a support to the ministry. Definitely prayer is the greatest thing one can do. I don’t just say that because that’s what you are supposed to say, but I really believe that.
If people feel led to help with MSI, especially with this economy, organizations like ours are the first thing to go. People stop giving to organizations like ours before they stop tithing to their church, [a priority] which I actually agree with. However, there are a lot of people, about 3,000 in Indonesia alone, who are being affected by MSI on a daily basis. The ministry in the Sudan actually looks like it is going to be cut. We have a hospital ministry there, but the funding has been cut so far back with the economy. If anyone would be led to give, that would be where it is really needed.
I would also appeal to anyone involved in children’s ministry or Christian education or even just education who might be interested in training others in another country to teach children. We are really praying for people, maybe teachers who want to take an early retirement; we are really in need of people like that right now. Turning children’s ministry and education into ministry is really what we’re all about. 
