In addition to the soccer ministry, John served with an after-school ministry in a low-income, high-crime area of Tulsa, spending hours at the ministry’s facility, interacting with students and building relationships that would allow him to point people to Jesus. “But I’ll be on the island, Lord willing.” “I hope that happens with whoever God brings to help you,” John told the leader.
But John’s commitment to North Sentinel never wavered. Sometimes the leader of the soccer ministry would discuss the possibility of involving more immigrants from more nations and having John work with him to grow the ministry. Even before leaving for India, John Chau served cross-culturally by helping coach a soccer team of immigrants from Myanmar. “Coach Chau” became a friend, mentor and coach, taking every opportunity to point young men to Christ. And he got cleats, uniforms and other equipment for players who could not afford them, often spending his own money. He planned devotionals and filled in when the ministry leader was gone. He set up for practice, made sure things ran smoothly and then packed up the gear at the end of practice. He was not the most high-profile leader, standing in the spotlight or preaching a sermon, but his love for people and his bedrock faith began to shine through. His name is inscribed on the Martyrs Memorial Wall in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.īecause of his love for soccer, John became involved with a ministry that ran a soccer program for immigrants from Myanmar. John Chau was honored during the 2022 Day of the Christian Martyr by The Voice of the Martyrs. An outreach leader at ORU challenged John not to wait, but to start immediately serving and reaching out in the name of Jesus. John was so focused on preparing to serve on the island - an aerial view of North Sentinel hung on his dorm-room wall - that he needed a reminder to keep serving in the here and now. He was vaccinated against all manner of diseases, knowing their immune systems would be vulnerable to imported Western viruses, and he underwent laser eye surgery so he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping his contact lenses clean. In addition, he undertook medical training and became certified as a wilderness EMT (emergency medical technician) so he could provide the Sentinelese with basic health care. And since little is known about the Sentinelese language, he took a linguistics course through a branch of Wycliffe Bible Translators in hope it would help him communicate with the islanders. Knowing he wouldn’t have hot water on the island, John took cold showers to help his body adapt. “He was one of the most prepared men I’ve ever met.” “He had conditioned his body, his mind, his spirit,” said a former representative from the student missions office at Oral Roberts University, the school John attended in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was all in.”Įvery decision John made for the next nine years was in preparation for going to North Sentinel Island, living among the Sentinelese and sharing the gospel with them. “Once I said yes to Jesus,” he said in a video for a church that supported his work, “I was committed. He sensed that God was calling him to go to North Sentinel Island to share God’s love with them. Soon after making that prayerful commitment, John found information online about the Sentinelese people, who live on an isolated island and have never heard the gospel. In his prayers, John asked God where He wanted him to go, echoing Isaiah’s affirmation - “Here I am! Send me.” “I know that God used that time to mark my life,” he said later. His journey began in 2008, the year he turned 17, when he became what he described as “an apprentice to Jesus.”Īfter taking his first missions trip the following year, he began to pray about spending his life serving as a missionary.
John spent almost a decade preparing to take the gospel to the Sentinelese, one of the last uncontacted people groups. What they didn’t know was that John had prepared for years to reach the Sentinelese with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Many news reports and opinion pieces implied that John had been foolish to contact a people group known to be violent toward outsiders. He intended to remain invisible to the world whether he lived or died, caring only to be seen by the one who told His followers to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”īut instead, in November 2018, news outlets around the world were running the story of a 26-year-old American man who had been killed trying to make contact with a remote tribe on North Sentinel Island, a tiny speck in the Bay of Bengal between India and Southeast Asia. If all had gone according to John Allen Chau’s plan, we would never have known his name.
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