Missionary Confidential

Childhood is hard enough when you have your original culture to contend with, but MKs (missionary kids) have an additional culture to adapt to, yet try to maintain friendships and relationships back “home”.  I can’t imagine the struggle at such a young age, but the blog “The Other Side of Missions” gives a good perspective on this struggle: “My Peculiar MKs”

Some missionary blog posts worth reading:

Karl Dahlfred asks if Long-Term Missionaries are obsolete.

Mentanna reflects on the costs of obedience to God’s call to missions affecting those around you, especially children.

Kevin asks if the multi-site church concept is uniquely American.

Grady Bauer gives some good direction for those who would like to be foreign missionaries but cannot physically go.

Ernest Goodman discusses the pros and cons of supporting a national church planters.

One of our supporting churches recently had a missions focus week, and it’s always an encouragement to us in the field to hear such things.  It’s really nice to hear from a group after a while and be reminded that there are so many lifting us up in prayer, which is the most important support for a missionary, in my opinion.  If your church supports a missionary, I would encourage you to get their contact details and send a quick “hello” with a reminder that you’re praying for them.  Seriously.  It means a lot to a missionary.

This particular church sent us some questions, mostly about how they could pray more specifically or if they could send any necessary supplies along to us.  Great stuff; we really appreciate the thoughts and inquiries.  But one of the questions came with an explanation that, during missions week, the theme was something like “Superheroes”, and that they were calling their missionaries this in the Sunday services.

Superheroes.  Hero would be hard enough to live up to, never mind adding “super” to it.  Us as Superheroes?  Hardly.

Because I know this church and some of its people, I am convinced that they had the best of intentions with this, so I don’t take offence directly.  They really do mean well.  I know they are trying to encourage others to the mission field, or at least giving towards missions, and as someone with a background in the Creative Ministry Arts, I applaud the creativity applied towards what is unfortunately viewed by many Christians as a dull subject.  Some of the faith-stretching things we’ve done to follow God’s call have certainly been out of the ordinary, and we’re definitely unusual.  But that’s where the similarities stop. » Read the rest of this entry «

As we went around the circle in the Bible study, introducing ourselves to the visiting mission team, one of our members made sure to interject that she had been a missionary forty years ago for two years.  To be honest, it didn’t make a lot of sense to the situation; perhaps she thought that, since the team was on mission, they would be interested in this fact about her.  But it made me reflect on other church situations, especially in the States, when people talked about a visiting pastor or a new member of the congregation: “Oh, and he was a missionary.”

Granted, it’s certainly interesting conversation fodder, and usually follow up questions would be about where, how long, etc.  But in my experience, someone still active as a missionary was viewed as odd, especially if they had been in their field for a large number of years.  As we complete year after year of our foreign mission, the comments are becoming more pointed: “You will come back, right?”,  “I thought you’d get this out of your system”, or “You won’t do this the rest of your life, will you?”  Is it such a problem that I am planning on staying?

Even in the field, the fact that we are missionaries understandably makes some people uneasy; “what’s your agenda?” their distressed looks imply.  But when they meet former missionaries, it’s as if all tension is gone and the anticipation of a spiritual confrontation doesn’t register.  What does that say about the non-missionary Christian?

Recently we’ve begun to get unsolicited contacts from churches and pastors in the States that say, “While we’re glad you’re serving in missions, if you ever come back we’d like to hire you.”  I suppose it’s because we’ve been in the field “long enough” to carry some sort of clout or interest.  I’ve seen this happen with two other missionaries here; both of their former churches in the States contacted them at the two-year mark to hire them back as pastor.  At a larger salary.  Both accepted incredibly quickly and fled the country, abandoning their church plants, without much explanation.  Why would a Stateside church look for their next pastor in a mission field with virtually no national pastors or church planters? » Read the rest of this entry «

We’re in the middle of hosting a short-term mission team to our field, so I’ve been too tied up to post much.  Regular posting should resume soon, but I have to say it’s gone amazingly well.  With all the horror stories and issues discussed both on this and other blogs, this team’s trip is the opposite.  I’ve been reflecting on some of the reasons why this is:

Prior Relationship: Not only is this group from one of our many supporting churches, we know the pastor (who is on this trip) from our last church planting gig in the States. It gave us a good idea about his attitudes towards foreign missions; however, we didn’t know the rest of the team before this.
Lengthy Communication Up to the Trip: Many emails and phone calls were bandied to focus on details, issues, itinerary, what was to happen, etc.
Openness to Our Ministry Needs: We were asked “what does your ministry need done?”, not told “here’s what our group does”.
Financial Issues Handled by the Team: From the earliest stages of the planning to during this trip, we’ve been told that the team does not want to overburden us financially.  They have no problem paying their way for the day-to-day needs here.
Experience in International Travel/Other Short-Term Missions: We’ve all got to start somewhere, but this field and our ministry is not yet in the position to deal with an STM freaking about being out of the States (I’ve actually witnessed this at another church here, not pretty) or getting in a huff because they just wanted to “see” ministry, not “do” ministry.
Cultural Sensitivity to Ministry Here: Everyone in the group have been respectful and understanding about spiritual interaction with the nationals here.  I’m not worried that one of them will all of a sudden throw tracts at people, start preaching on a street corner or opening a conversation with one of our neighbours by telling them that they’re going to hell.

There’s still more time on this STM trip, but I’m really pleased over all.