The Pineapple Story, by Otto Koning (former missionary to Irian Jaya, Indonesia)

“Tuan (sir), you have become
a Christian!”

Whenever the name of Otto Koning is mentioned, those who have heard him speak break out with laughter. They are not laughing at Otto; they are  laughing at their own human nature which he has an amazing gift to reveal.

Otto and his wife, Carol, went to Irian Jaya (New Guinea) to be missionaries. They worked among a native tribe that had only known their village ways. One of those village ways was stealing from others. When Otto and his wife arrived and moved into a hut, the natives often came by to visit. The Konings would notice that after they left that various household items had disappeared. They saw these items again when they went to preach in the natives' village.

The only fruit Otto could grow on the island was pineapples. Otto loved pineapples and took pride in the ones he grew. However, whenever they began to ripen, the natives stole them. Otto could never keep a ripe pineapple for himself. This was frustrating and he became angry with the natives. All during the seven-year period in which this took place, Otto preached the gospel to these natives but never had a conversion.

The more the natives stole, the angrier Otto became. 

Otto took a furlough to the United States and attended a conference on personal rights. At this conference, he discovered that he was frustrated over this situation because he had taken personal ownership of his pineapple garden. After much soul searching, he gave his garden to God. Soon the natives started having problems among their tribe. The natives saw a correlation between what Otto had done and their own lives being affected by calamities in their village.

When Otto gave his garden to God, he no longer got angry and was free from worry. The natives started bringing him fruit from the garden because they didn't want any more calamities to come into their village.

The light came on one day when a native said to Otto,

"Tuan (sir), you have become a Christian. You don't get angry anymore.

We always wondered if we would ever meet a Christian." 

They had never associated Otto with the kind of person he was preaching about because his message did not line up with his life. Otto was broken in spirit when he realized he had been such a failure.

At the end of seven years, he witnessed his first conversion, and many began coming to Christ once he fully gave his garden to God. The fruit grew so abundantly and his village became the most evangelized in the whole region.

It was only when Otto gave all his possessions to God that he became free from them. God measured back to him manifold once He had complete ownership.Otto realized something each of us must realize:

To gain your life you must lose it, along with your possessions. 

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I hope you'll listen to this powerful message, delivered through his dry humor.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
~ Matthew 10:39