What was the favorite food of the jungle kids in Indonesia where the missionary served?
According to the account, the favorite food of the jungle kids in Indonesia was a big black beetle. It was considered equal to any American candy bar. The children would eagerly bite into the beetle, and the missionary was expected to eat it too if he wanted to reach them.
Les explains that a missionary friend brought back a movie he had made himself, filmed during the era of 8 millimeters, on a mission field in Indonesia among pretty much uncivilized people. The favorite food of those jungle kids, equal to any American candy bar, was a big black beetle. The kids would chomp into that beetle and then give him one. He said that if you wanted to gain them, you had to eat that beetle just as well as those kids did. There were some things even more gross, but he would not pass them on. Les uses this to picture mission work: you have to step into the very same mold as the people you are trying to reach. That began with Paul, who understood the spiritually weak, did not come as a spiritual giant ridiculing or criticizing them, but identified with them and tried to be on an equal level, all for the sake of the Gospel so lost people could be saved. Then the text shifts gears at verse 24.