Dr. David Gibbs: Dr. David Bowler told a story. A young lady, graduating from Bible College, came forward in a service and said, “I’d like you to pray with me. I’m gonna go to the mission field.” He said, “That’d be wonderful.” He asked, “Where are you gonna go?” She replied, “I’m gonna go to the headhunters of Malaysia.” He inquired, “Where now?” She responded, “To the headhunters. All the missionaries have pulled out because they were eating them. Ten years ago, all the oil workers pulled out because they were eating the oil workers. And they need Jesus Christ. And God’s put them on my heart.”
Now David Bowler is Special Forces Green Beret, Ironman contest winner, deadlift champion for the world, over 750 firefights in Vietnam, a heavily, heavily decorated veteran. He said, “David, I’m not going there. They eat you. There’s a reason everybody pulled out. They don’t want to get eaten.” He said, “Here’s this young lady, petite, frail.” And he said, “I told her, are you sure?”
She said, “Preacher, you don’t have to scare me. I’ve asked God to send me. They need Christ. No mission board will back me because they think it’s suicide. But I know I’m supposed to come.”
Like that, her parents came forward. And her parents said, “Preacher, will you please talk some sense into her head? The circumstances couldn’t be worse. When you get ready to do the impossible for God, don’t expect everybody to applaud you because they’re gonna be captivated, mesmerized by the circumstances. And they’ll wanna tell you why it can’t be done.”
She said, “Brother Gibbs, she said, would you please pray a blessing on me?” And he said, “David, I’ll tell you what went through my mind. If they capture her, and they will, I pray they don’t abuse her badly. But no one has survived.”
They hired a chopper, an oiled oil pilot, who knew these mountains, said, “I’ll fly you in there. But I can’t come down under 150 feet, because those headhunters, those man eaters, they with their spears throw their spear up and they foil our blades and they bring us down and they’ll eat me too. “So,” he said, “you’re going to have to repel from 150 feet.”
This young lady had never repelled down anything. Now she’s going to go out of a chopper. Two ladies from the church went with her just to see her out of the chopper. The chopper pilot said, “Where were I’m going to drop you and I’ll be back in 60 days. But I’m taking it.”
“And that crusty chopper pilot started crying and he said, you can’t imagine what they’re gonna do to you. Don’t go, I’ll be back in 60 days, but you won’t be back.” That young lady looked at him and she said, “Please understand, I don’t have to come back. I do have to go.” And she repelled out when they flew away a long 60 days.
When they came back at 60 days right to the spot, there she was. And with her were almost 50 converts. What no one knew was the tribe where she got dropped, only eight men, they didn’t eat women. And the tribe where she was dropped had a centuries-old legend that one day a female god would come out of the sky. And they thought she was that God. And she said, no, but he sent me. And I want to point you to the true and the living.” While she was there, she said, “Are there other headhunters around here?” And the headhunters she had said, “Yes, there’s the headhunters up the river, but don’t go there, they’re the people who eat us. They’re the really bad headhunters. And we think they will eat a woman”. She said, “Send me up the river.” And in that 60 days, she won the chief and brought him back.
When I had the privilege to meet this lady, I told her story and then she walked out on a platform and I looked at her and I said, “You’re Margaret.” I thought she’s gotta be…hmm. Oh. She said, “Brother Gibbs, you tell the story like I did it.” She said, “I didn’t do it, I was just there. God did it, it was impossible. My God’s just lookin’ for somebody Brother Gibbs willing to hazard the impossible.”
