“Well, you must be there because you have such a love for the people.” I never know how to respond to that comment.

It’s usually after the complaintive statement about why the person thinks it would be so awful to live in our mission field (or outside of America in general). “But the weather’s so bad!”, “How do you deal with the lack of product choice?”, or “Why would you give up such good opportunities in the States?” are the most typical precursors.

A while back, we were invited to visit some fellow Americans in another part of this country during our vacation time. They are Christian, yet their primary reason for being in the country is secular work. We had asked about what there was to do as a tourist in their city, and the reply was interesting:

“Here’s a list of historical and religious sites in the area. We figured since you’re missionaries and you have such a love for these people, you must want to focus on those things during your vacation here.”

Uh, no, actually we were curious about regular tourist stuff and, while that could include a museum or church, we’re more the foodie type. And shopping. And entertainment. Or even walking the countryside. You know, being somewhat normal in modern society. When I let them know this (albeit in much less sarcastic tones), they sounded disappointed. We just wanted some time off and to have fun. It became clear that we weren’t living up to that “Missionary Superhero” stereotype.

I wouldn’t say I have “a love for the people of [my mission field]”, because it seems to imply infatuation or obsession with this specific culture ahead of God’s direction, a bizarre fixation which many take as the only explanation as to why I’d live in this “crazy”, “awful”, or “God-forsaken” place (other people’s words, not mine). To be clear, I do not have a hate for the people, either. I enjoy being here, and we’ve already made extensive study of historical and cultural aspects to better minister to the people here. It seems that the longer we’re in our field, the better we’re understanding the personality of this culture. It can be great fun! But, like all cultures, it’s not perfect in our mission field, and there are parts that are frustrating at times. What I do suspect is that God could call us to a plethora of different cultures, and we’d find that each would have awful and great aspects that make them unique. Just like we found when we were growing up in the States.

What I would say is that we have a love for Christ, and we’re concerned for all people groups; He’s just given us a geographical area to focus on that we find less challenging than it appears to those on the outside of the situation. I can’t say we’re here solely because we have a “love of the people” because it’s not true. We’re here because God called us here, and, should He call us elsewhere or back to the States, we go where He says.

Related posts:

1. When Sympathy Turns Demeaning, Part 2: Those Poor People

While the context is business entrepreneurship, John Doerr makes some interesting comparisons in this video from Stanford. I feel his description of missionary is very favourable, and it made me think in the Christian context, “Are some missionaries more like mercenaries?” The reason I say that is, if you pause the video at 1:04, there’s a comparison list. And it saddens me to say that I have encountered some mercenaries on the field, just replace “money” with “numbers” or “personal glory”. Thoughts?

Link to “Mercenaries and Missionaries”, John Doerr

No related posts.

Editor’s Note: Karl Dahlfred, missionary to Thailand, wrote our Guest Post for today. You can follow him on his blog, “Gleanings From the Field” (click on title to visit his website).

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By Karl Dahlfred

I thought I was prepared for most of the questions that would come at us as we returned to the U.S.  We had been planning to start a year of home assignment in the U.S. in December but because of my father’s death we hurriedly moved it up to the beginning of October.  I knew that there would be questions about how long we’d be in the area, where we are staying, and when we’d be going back.

But there was one question that totally blindsided me.  Some people have asked, “Are you going back to Thailand?”  Are we going back to Thailand?!  In my mind, the answer was obvious.  “Of course we are going back to Thailand!”  Why would anyone think that we are not going back?

Unless the Lord gives us a definite indication that He wants us to do something different, my wife and I are committed to church planting in Thailand.  For how long?  Not one year.  Not four years.  Not ten years.  We’ll be in Thailand until retirement at least, maybe longer.  Or until the government kicks us out (although there is not much risk of that).  We are long-term missionaries.  That means we are in it for the long haul.  We’d be happy to die in our boots.

On the one hand, I am sure that some of the folks asking this question have not been following our prayer letters or blog, and don’t know how long we are planning to minister in Thailand.  Because I don’t expect that everyone is keeping up with our news, and I am pleasantly surprised when someone mentions something they saw on our website.  Even among our supporters, it would not be realistic to expect everyone to be reading and remembering everything that we send out.  In today’s information age, you can only keep up with so many people, especially if they live far away.  With that in mind, it makes sense that people who meet us unexpectedly on this side of the ocean would ask if we are going back to Thailand.

On the other hand, in today’s short-term climate – both in the secular world and in the church – I wonder if the idea of long-term missions is being lost.  I think that it is hard for many people to wrap their minds around the idea that we are “over there” for good.  Surely we will come back to “our home” eventually, won’t we?  What about the children’s education?  Have we thought about that? (We have).  Don’t we miss the lifestyle and conveniences that America has to offer?  Aren’t you planning to pastor a church in the U.S. at some point?  Why would you willingly spend the majority of your life anywhere other than “the greatest country in the world”?

No matter what way you cut it, missionaries are misfits.  Everyone in our home country thinks that we belong here in the U.S.  So when we show our faces in the home country, some people wonder if we “are back” (in the permanent settling-down, getting-a-real-job, buying-a-house sense).  And when we are in Thailand, local folks are always wondering when we are going back to our own country.  Anytime I return to a certain shop after being away for more than two weeks, the vendor says, “Oh, where have you been?  I thought you went back to your home country.”  As a non-Asian face, I am not viewed as a long-term resident in Thailand.  People see me as a passing fog that will eventually lift. I don’t belong here, and it is just a matter of time before I go home.  “Of course Thailand is a great country”, people think to themselves, “but don’t you miss America, with it’s gleaming modern appliances, fancy automobiles, and movie stars roaming the streets?”

By nature, I like to be understood by those around me and our abrupt return to the U.S. has left me a bit unsettled and more easily flustered by questions like, “Are you going back to Thailand?”  But as life gets into a bit more of a routine, I am happy to answer that question.  I am a long-term missionary and long-term missionaries are out of the box for many people. So unless the Lord calls us elsewhere or calls us home (in the heavenly sense), I hope to be happily answering that question for the next three decades or so.  “Yes, we’re going back.”

No related posts.

From the minute we started fundraising in the States years ago, and even up to the present, the first question we’re asked as missionaries is, “Why did you become a missionary to [our mission field country in Western Europe]?”

Most of the time, the query comes from a Christian, both native and international.  It’s an odd question, because as stated above it’s really open to interpretation for the answer they’re looking for.  I’m never sure if they’re looking for:

So our retort is always, “ God.”  Not to be snarky or even difficult, but because it’s true.  Really true.  There’s no earthly explanation as to why two Californians with no link to this country or background in missions ministry would dump everything in the States to do this long-term.  It doesn’t make a bit of sense, I realise this.  But it is what it is.  And many seem to think this is not the right answer.

Our questioner usually performs the eye roll, complete with sarcastic “Yeah, yeah, God’s doing this.  Of course, I agree. But how did you pick this place?” or “What really made you come over here?”  I don’t know if missionaries to the 10/40 window receive this question, too, but the implication is definitely that we’re making something out of nothing.

This isn’t an isolated incident.  Most of the Western European missionary bloggers that I follow have noted similar situations.  Because we’re not in the 10/40 window, many consider this to be a “Reached” area for Christ (as opposed to “Unreached People Groups” within the window).  Let me be clear: I support mission to the 10/40 window and in no way am advocating a stoppage to ministry there.  If you’re called there (or are already working in ministry there), then keep on keepin’ on.  However, Ernest Goodman put it best about missions to “reached” groups when he said, “This isn’t a case of ‘my people group is loster than yours,’ it’s a heartfelt call to action by someone who God has called to service.”  Which is why it’s hurtful when people lob the follow up questions, “Why’d you pick an easy place to live?  Couldn’t handle Africa?  Wanted a vacation?”

Easy?  Since when do we start comparing fields amongst missionaries?  Who has the master list of Difficult Mission Areas in descending order?  Must all missionaries live in the very worst of physical conditions to qualify?  Right now, I think the hardest place for me to live would be back in the States!

And how do we define “easy”?  My “easy” field’s missionary attrition rate is through the roof. Over the almost four years we’ve been here, over 20 missionaries left way before their term commitment. Marriages collapsed, church plants collapsed, one couple left evangelicalism completely for Eastern Orthodox. None of that sounds like a cake walk mission field to me.

The reality is that we’ve been called here.  My mission field is extremely spiritually dark.  While we do have First World amenities here, it doesn’t negate the spiritual warfare, the separation from family and friends, or the financial struggle we experience as missionaries.

Finances.  That’s the other argument against our calling.  It’s wildly expensive to live in our field, so much so that we’re part tentmakers to make up the declining support difference.  It’s been suggested that we serve in a place that’s cheaper to live.  But we’re called here.  We didn’t find some list of pricey European cities and then try to call a move there a mission field.

Back in January, Kevin over at Life.Outpoured wrote a great article entitled, “Should cost be a factor in your ministry decision?” Of course, we’re to be good stewards of the money God provides us, but are the most economical places the only place we may be called? Is “the most bang for the buck” what determines who hears the Gospel and who does not?

Finally, I’ve also heard the argument that we should be serving where there is a harvest going on right now, not in a place so spiritually desolate.  While some will need to be serving in a spiritual harvest area, I think that we reflect upon what leads up to the harvest, using the agricultural metaphor.

We’re in the midst of our first official vegetable garden, having only gardened for flowers/plants in the past.  At the beginning of this year, we sat down in cold January and decided we’d like to plant a garden where there was just grass.  To get us to the vegetable garden we currently have, we had to rip out the grass, prepare the soil, plan the garden, sow seeds, water, feed, pick off pests, place stakes for climbing plants—in other words, we really had to work that patch of land diligently to have what we do now.  At most points in the progression, anyone walking by would have thought the garden to be simply a plot of dirt, a place with no promise, nothing to see or do.  Yet we knew what was coming, just as long as we kept faithful to our work.  And now we have a harvest of good food.

The point here is that there are stages in ministry before the harvest.  Work was needed in different skill sets to complete the task.  If we had simply said in January, “Let’s have a garden,” then did nothing until September, all we’d have now is a patch of much-longer grass.

I believe there will be a harvest in Western Europe.  Though possible, I’m not sure we’ll see it in our lifetime.  But God is making a way for the soil to be prepared, for seeds to be planted, and for the fields to be prepared.  The small group of diligent missionaries working now in Western Europe are preparing the way, and I’m proud that God called us to be counted amongst that number.

Related posts:

1. “I Can’t Call You a Missionary”—ouch
2. The Search Terms I Get…
3. Lose Yourself: What is Your Identity?

Of all the lessons that foreign missions ministry has taught me (and continues to do so), the top of the list has to be that we are shaped by our location and culture more than we realise.  Most anyone who has lived in a foreign country for a decent stretch of time would probably recognise how true this is.

When you meet a fellow Christian from another country, there are some great similarities and kinship that’s experienced through our Family in Christ.  It’s difficult to describe to others, but there is an understanding of what it’s like to press on with life as a Christian in this fallen world.  They know what you’ve seen, and usually understand how fellow Christians experience life.

Then there’s the point that you realise that their Christian experience has differed than yours.  Their “favourite songs” are ones you’ve never heard, or methodology in worship services is, well, just different.  Nothing wrong or sacrilegious, but jarringly different to your exposure.

Who and what you are surrounded by is bound to influence your perception and choices.  Even when I’ve worked with missionaries who are firmly resolved to not lose one bit of their “American” accent, actions or attitude, over time even they begin to start using phrases here that wouldn’t ever be used “back home”.  They don’t notice it, and can become alarmed when informed of this, yet for all their determination to resist, the phrase or action creeps back in.  Bear in mind that these are things that are completely inoffensive both here and to Americans, nor would they be anything wrong in God’s view at all.  They hear it used over and over again, or perhaps people here understand them better when they say that phrase.  It just happens, even if they purposely try to stop.

The anger and fear that I’ve witnessed when a missionary realises that they’ve changed is striking.  It appears to them as if they’ve lost a part of their identity, a part of what defines them, and, to put it bluntly, the change freaks them out.  I know that we personally act and speak differently since being in the field, and not a few of our friends and family have politely (sometimes sternly) reminded us that we’re “still American” or should “act/talk more American”.  All this has done is reinforce in me that first and foremost, my identity is in Christ and my citizenship is in Heaven.

As Christians, Christ and His ways, His laws, His thoughts are to be our starting point.  This knowledge I’ve always believed, but now in the situation of changing cultures this wisdom is moving from my head to my heart.  The more we’re around someone or something, the more we become like them.  We humans can’t help it.  I believe it’s why the potter/clay analogy is used; we are impressionable beings, able to take shape according to the influence of another.

Once Jesus is established as our example, all other identities are up to where He places us.  Those identities may alter according to our circumstances, but it doesn’t negate our place in Christ.  Whether I act more or less “American” doesn’t diminish the fact of where I was born or lived most of my life.  It doesn’t mean any ill will towards my American family or friends, either.  It just means that I live somewhere else now that differently shapes my experience of life.

You’ve probably already guessed that I would invoke Paul’s entreaty to “become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22-23).  But it’s the phrase that summarises Chapter 9 in my Bible that says it all: Paul Surrenders His Rights.  If I need to change language, actions or appearance (within God’s law and direction in the Bible) to reach people in another culture for Christ, so be it.  I only need to be concerned with God’s direction in my life, and nothing more.

Related posts:

1. The Search Terms I Get…
2. What Are You Doing There? Justifying Your Call

As much as I try to plan ahead with my writing and to focus on certain topics, I’m still surprised how often a germ of an idea for a blog post seems to come out of nowhere.  I’ve mentioned before about the search terms used that direct people here, and as usual I was taking a peek at the recent ones.  While I seriously considered asking the readers of this blog the “best job for a missionary leaving the field” (yes, an actual search term in the last few days), another search term caught my attention.

So, considering all the recent discussion about the definition of “missional”, I present you with a search term that I posit as a question and look forward to your answers in the comments:

“What is the difference between ‘missionary’ and ‘missional’?”

Related posts:

1. Pastor v. Missionary: What’s The Difference?

Somedays I think that I don’t see missions like a lot of other people do.  Consider the following:

In an email update I received from one of our supporters, the writer mentioned that her current reading was all missionary biographies, so she quoted Hudson Taylor with the implication that I must also be familiar with it.  It was a nice quote.  I had not heard it before, nor have I read missionary biographies.
When meeting a Christian here in the field, she assumed that we grew up, like herself, hearing stories at bedtime of the noble and heroic Christian missionaries in the heart of Africa.  Surely this is what prompted our missionary call?  Surely not.
Through this blog, I was contacted by a man interested in becoming a missionary.  One of his questions was: “Where in the world would you like to share the Gospel where you haven’t been able to yet?”  It’s a good question, but I honestly drew a blank.  I’d never thought of that before.
On our initial fundraising tour, people meeting us afterwards usually opened their greeting with. “You were missionary kids, right?” or “Your parents were missionaries, of course?”  Without divulging personal details, quite the opposite is our reality.  Not only were our parents only somewhat involved in their local church during our respective childhoods, they are now infrequent attenders at best, and all hold deep disappointment at our choice to be full-time foreign missionaries.

My whole life I’ve never fit into the pigeonholes people have tried to place me.  It shouldn’t surprise me that I don’t fit the missionary stereotype, either, and on the surface seem like less of a missionary.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t come with the fuzzy, feel-good past that everyone seems to think encourages the desire to become a missionary.  It’s not a sordid, law-breaking history, but it’s pretty dysfunctional considering my parents are Christians.  And I made some bad choices on my own along the way.  Maybe it’s because church was a stable source of constancy in my young life, but I wouldn’t say anyone ever personally encouraged me to become a missionary.

Perhaps it’s my tendency to try not to over-think things in the short term future (please don’t read that as not being prepared or lacking strategy; there is a difference).  Because I see my life as mission, whether in a foreign land or not, I expect to share the Gospel wherever God has planted me and whenever that chance may come.  I don’t yet have a burning desire to witness in Uruguay, but in no way does it mean I’m reluctant to do so if God put me there.

And, despite my voracious reading appetite, I’ve never had a specific interest in reading the life stories of other missionaries.  I think nothing wrong of reading such things, it just doesn’t register as something I’d like to read.  As someone raised Southern Baptist, I know that Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong were missionaries a long time ago, and we took an annual collection in each of their names for missions.  That’s about it.

I’m doing what I’m doing because God wants me here right now, though I could have, as a pastor friend of mine says, “written my ticket” to anywhere within or outside of ministry in the States.  I’m here despite the rejection, not acceptance, of my family and some friends.  Though I don’t have a massive familiarity with historical missions work, I know the country I’m in desperately needs to know born-again Christianity, and God is blessing our consistency with the gradual building of trust amongst the nationals.

So, am I less of a missionary because I don’t fit a profile?  Perhaps, yet I really enjoy where I work and what I do.  I’m so grateful that God can use a broken person like me.

No related posts.

Over at Wrecked For the Ordinary, a young missionary has written a great piece about people’s perceptions (and, more importantly, misperceptions) about missionaries today.  Without knowing it, she’s summed up quite a few of the themes and threads here at my blog.  Best quote:

“It feels like what I am alluding to is something like this: ‘I am a professional at telling people about Jesus. And you’re not, cause you work a 9-5. Only, I shouldn’t say professional, because I am on (cringe) support. Wanna give me money?’”

Check it out here: “Lottie Moons or Ex-Pimps: We’re All Missionaries”

Related posts:

1. Stuck in a Moment, Both Young and Old

Kevin over at the “Life.Outpoured” blog talks about the importance of missionaries adapting (yet staying within God’s law) to the culture in which they minister, and it goes beyond clothing and acting.  He gives some great points to consider in “(Missionary) Etiquette 101″.  My favourite: “Begin to think like a citizen of heaven, not of a particular country.”

Related posts:

1. Lose Yourself: What is Your Identity?

If you write a blog, run a website or are some form of IT professional, then you already know that you have access to a staggering amount of statistics about your website. While these can vary, nowadays you usually can view how many people viewed your blog or site from certain countries or see which search engines (such as Google) they used to find you. Additionally, you can also see what search term or phrase they used right before they clicked on your site address.

You can probably figure out what most of the search terms/phrases would be for Missionary Confidential, but as I reviewed the list from the entire life of this blog thus far, I started noticing trends. Some are good points, some are confusing, some cause concern, and a few even made me laugh, though I doubt they were meant that way.

I’ve grouped the most interesting ones for your review:

Curiosity
People want to know these things, evidently. Some of these may be answered in future posts.

Doubts About Continuing
I was heartbroken over how many and how often these terms showed up. There are obviously a lot of missionaries that are conflicted about their next step. Or some missionaries are trying to avoid leaving.

Financial Issues Are Popular
The only answer I can give is, “depends on the situation and the missionary.”

When Things Start Getting Serious
I appreciate the candour of these search terms.

There Are Some Problems
It appears these are from people who had unfortunate interactions with a missionary. Or it’s missionaries trying to understand the bad reputation in some circles.

Made Me Laugh, Mostly
Some of these I’m just not sure what they were thinking.

Questions That Should Be Asked More
I hope in future that more Christians start seriously asking these questions amongst themselves and in their churches.

Related posts:

1. When Missionaries Leave on Bad Terms
2. “I Can’t Call You a Missionary”—ouch
3. How I Became a Missionary, Part 4: You’re Nuts