Missions Corner

A very Merry Christmas to all of you!!! So thankful for what the Lord has permitted in my life this year. He has given so many blessing and taught me so many lessons, and I am truly grateful for how He has used them to remind me of who He is and how much I need Him. May you all have a wonderful season with friends and family!! "God, bless us everyone".

Missions :What They Never Told You

     After having been on the mission field for about two years, I would like to share with you what God has taught me personally. Having chatted with fellow missionaries, I have come to the realization that all missionaries have experienced certain of the same difficulties. I hope that these next few articles will cause you to think, guide you in how to pray, and give understanding to those who are considering the mission field.

#4 Discouragement is Your Greatest Enemy
 
       Because we have been put on such a high spiritual pedestal, it is easy for us to think we are "super humans" in the area of victory and changing lives. If you will sit down and have a real conversation with us, you will find we are just as human now as we were before we left for the mission field. The battles we faced on the home front are the same we face on our missionfield, except they are stronger. Of all of the challenges we face, discouragement seems to be the most commonly shared. It is easy to run on the fumes of the high we recieved when announcing our missions calling. That overwhelming sense of awe when our church family gathered around to "lay hands" on us and pray. They came to give us that one last goodbye hug in the airport, never realizing that it was that last time they would see the "old us". We left feeling the support, the love, and the prayers. When we arrived we were ready to "take the field by the horns". The long distant phone calls, skype dates, instant messages. emails, and care packages followed for the first six months. The guilty feeling of being so busy you couldn't take the call or respond, got overrun by the insane schedule of settling in. After time though the balance is found, and then the discouragement slowly starts to sneak in.
        For every missionary it is different. We don't see our passion for the ministry catching on to the nationals, language school is grueling and our brain stops computing simple English sentences, church attendance reaches a lull and new visitors are rare because they don't trust us yet, and the Messenger "bell" has dwindled down to once or twice a week. This is only after the first year. For the seasoned missionary the discouragements are felt on a larger scale; a faithful member who becomes disgruntled and leaves the church, that one who you have witnessed and witnessed to, but won't accept Christ, the leader in training who falls into sin, the constant feeling of being used because you are the American, and our own personal failures of goals and ideals we have set for ourselves. Those, and the acute feeling of isolation, are compounded to create for us a nice size "pity party". Thus, distorting our vision, clouding our purpose, and weakening our resolve to be "good soldiers". Then, there is the frustration felt, that we in our current positions can not share our weakeness with anyone for fear that we would be judged as spiritual failures. It is easy often to commiserate with Elijah, David, and at times Paul, who said,"None has stood by me."
      Before you write this off as a "Woe is me" article let me share with you the beauty found in our position, even when we are feeling as Elijah, that "I, even I, alone am still serving". It is in these moments that God meets us. Like with Paul, he stands with us in the prison. In our deepest, darkest moments He finds us, and we know Him better. He becomes the "substance of things hoped for" and the "evidence of things not seen". He sends us that Elisha, Jonathan, and Timothy to bolster our faith, and He reveals to us that the "burden" is not ours to bear alone. He, in His mercy, lifts the burden from our shoulders, and gives us rest for our weary souls, refreshing us with hope for the next day, the next battle, and the next victory.


#3  It is not a Novel

     Missions. The word itself contains its own ambiance. We imagine wild animal chases, evil spirits lurking at every door, and natives running into the arms of the missionary begging to be saved. Unless you are a missionary to the Hawaiian islands there won't be a tribal welcoming party ready to greet you with gifts as you exit the plane...unless they have been paid. I not saying that there won't be days of fun-filled adventure off the paved roads, but life is as mundane and ryhthmic here as in your comfortable ranch style homes. People here live comfortably, eat well, and have days off together. We go to work, go to school, and go to the beach...if there's one nearby. We have weddings, funerals, and birthdays. Our ways to get from here to there may be different, but we adjust and move on. In the ministry souls arn't saved every week, nor do people run to us begging for the gospel. Wait,before you gasp in horror...does that happen to you? Now, I have been playing the "Devil's advocate", but think of it this way...unless you are a missionary in your hometown you will not be a missionary anywhere else. If you don't see souls saved there, you won't see them saved on a foreign field. Home is where your friends, family, and coworkers are, many of whom need the gospel. The missionfield is only another place, with different looking people who need the gospel. It is really as simple and different as that. Yes, there are adjustments to make, but with the help of a powerful God who never leaves us, nothing is impossible. God's miracles are not limited to the missionfield. They can happen at home too.

#2. You Lose Your Identity

     You won’t “fit in” anywhere. Although similar to the first, this specific point has different facets that present other challenges in the life of a missionary. You no longer are “connected” or as “tight” with your friends back home, so you attempt to make the best of things in your new environment. You do everything you can to adapt to your surroundings, only to very quickly realize you are a “strange outsider” to them. Even if they accept you as one of them, because you do not have their past experiences and have not grown up in their culture you will still be set apart. A cultural difference or language barrier reminds you that no matter how hard you study or how much time you spend with them,  you will never be one of them. While this fact is humbling and at times a bit painful, God uses this stage to teach you who you really are and were meant to be for Him. You weren’t “set apart” to “fit in” – in your own country or the one in which you have been led to minister. You were called to be, as the Bible says, “a stranger and pilgrim” to follow Christ and impact the world. Your identity as a son of God is with Christ. He was not a part of this world and yet made more of a difference in the three years He spent on the earth than in all the time He spent in Heaven with the Father.  You will have to “die” to how people perceive you. When you can say I am “complete in Thee”, you will be able to minister affectively for Christ. 

#1. You Lose Connection.

   I am not referring to the often weak or non- existent internet signals. No matter how connected you are to the social media, the truth remains that quality face-to-face time beats Facebook and Facetime hands down. Friendships are built and maintained through the time spent in person, not by how many "suggested friends" I can click through in a cyber-minute. The reality we missionaries have to accept is that we are moving away. Your church and friends plan a going away party for you, offering their support and best wishes, but when the plane leaves the run way the connections begin to weaken. You cannot expect nor will you have the time to "keep up with crowd".  

  After a time, whatever seemed so relevant and cool begins not to matter anymore. Your eyes open to a whole new world, new culture, and new needs. You jump into serving and lose yourself to what is happenning on the other side of the world. That is- until you call home and connect with friends again. The first conversations are filled with your wild adventure stories about where you have been and what you have done, and how things are going back home, but after a while what was new to you becomes old and normal. Your new ministry changes your thinking and priorities, and no matter how many pictures, update letters, and messages you send home, they won't "get" the "new you" or your passion.  Many will nod their heads and say, "Keep up the good work". Don't be too hard on them. You have to understand your world is completely alien to them. They can't and won't understand what it is like for you unless they visit for themselves. 

  You begin to realize that you don't have a lot in common with your friends anymore. Life goes on in their circles, their ministries, their jobs, and their families. If you are not careful, you can allow the fact that they have moved on with their lives without you to bother you. Pride and Self-pity can settle in. Here you are serving the Lord, having left and given up everything and everybody to serve Jesus, and at home its "fun, fun, fun til the sun goes down!" These "superior saint" attitudes unfortunately can drive a wedge in your relationships back home, causing your gap of differences to grow.

 For those of you on the home field, you may have noted the loss of connection. Those of you who have housed a missionary or live with a family member who recently came back from the mission field understand what I am saying. Often it is like sharing space with zombies from "The Living Dead", but have patience with us.  We have simply fogotten how easy and convenient your life is, and the rapid changes overwhelm us. We often have to catch our breath and let our guard back down. In a sense you could say we need a "debriefing" time. We may close ourselves off from the outside world, and surround ourselves with whatever was familiar to us before we left. We may spend days or even a few weeks with only immediate family to reaclimate and reconnect ourselves.

   Future missionaries, even though the disconnecting experience will be difficult for you, let me reassure you that when you "disconnect" from you past, you become "reconnected" with a greater Source. Be prepared though,that this may frustrate your friends. They may feel like they are on the "outside" looking "in". By connecting to the True Power you will gain a more mature understanding of what is important in this life and what counts. Once you reach this point in your maturity, put on your seatbelts, because the doors of possible ministries are limitless, and your adventure has just begun.