The stories were starting to fly among the Bagwido people as they met for their Saturday night Bible teaching. Ishmael was not back from another village in time and the people thought they knew why.
"Yeah, Ishmael went down with all his buddies and got drunk so he hasn't come back yet."
Ishmael had gone to the neighboring Papua New Guinea village to pick up a 40-foot canoe to use for a supply run, a village that always has a drinking party on Friday or Saturday night.
Missionary Mark Woodard was concerned. Ishmael had been so faithful attending the teaching sessions, missing only twice out of 80 lessons. Mark thought that Ishmael's weakness of "getting drunk with all the boys" would again be his undoing.
Ishmael showed up just as the Bible teaching was ending. He said he had trouble getting through the tall swamp grass where the river joins the lake. He had to get out and push his family for one and a half hours.
But that only accounted for a small portion of the day. What about the rest of the time? Ishmael was excited to tell the story.
"Mark, hearing God's Word from the roots up has really been an amazing thing. Now I am God's kid, and whenever I see others from other villages that don't know, we always get into conversations about God and His Word.
"Mark, they are just so very confused like we were when you guys first came in here to live with us."
Ishmael then told Mark about his experience that morning as he sat with three men from other villages.
"I joined in their conversation and I turned it around to talking about God and His Word. They had so many questions for me. When I talked, they just sat there with their mouths open. They could not believe what they were hearing.
"Mark, I just started right back in the beginning with Adam and Eve and told them the Old Testament stories. Then I told them about the Old Testament sacrifices that the … people had to do and then about how Jesus Christ was the last sacrifice. It was so much fun. By the time we were done talking we had talked for four hours together."
The two men were sitting in the dark and Ishmael could not see the tears running down Mark's face. Nor did he know Mark's thoughts.
"I thought, this man has the Holy Spirit in his life to teach and to guide him and he is taking God's Talk wherever he goes," Mark wrote. "And to think that in my weak faith, I did not trust that he could stay away from a drinking party. He was evangelizing those around him instead."
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