Category: Thoughts on Missions Page 5 of 6

Imagine you got this December newsletter from a missionary:

Hey friends!

It’s been a great year! We’re really thankful for the amazing vacation we took in Thailand. We also got to attend a really fantastic conference for the whole family in South Korea. We got to go skiing!

Our eldest daughter is excelling in soccer and hoping for a college scholarship, while our youngest continues to spend most of her time playing the violin. She even was invited to play in an elite quartet this year.

Please enjoy the attached pictures of our favorite furry friends, Max and Buddy, who bring our family so much joy!

Love,

Your missionaries

If we would feel uneasy reading this newsletter, we need to ask ourselves a few questions: Are we upset that these missionaries took nice vacations, bragged about their kids, or showed us pictures of something as mundane as their dogs? If so, why should missionaries be on such a higher spiritual plane that they aren’t allowed to write about these things?

But that’s not my point today. I’ve written about that elsewhere.

The bigger concern with this newsletter–and rightly so–is that we expect missionaries to not just talk about vacations and kids and dogs, but to give some kind of report on their ministry. For people who have been called, sent, and supported, you expect to hear about how they are reaching people with the gospel.

Why I’m Becoming a Third Class Missionary

By Amy Medina

On July 10, 2020

In Living Like a Missionary in America, Re-Entry to America, Thoughts on Missions

This time last year, Gil and I made the decision that we would be relocating to the States in 2020. As we started thinking about where we would go and what we would do in America, there were a lot of possibilities on the table.

There was one thing, however, that I was adamant about. Whatever we decided to do next, I did not want to be in a support-raising position. One of my most popular-ever posts is In Defense of Second Class Missionaries. If being missionary teachers made us second-class missionaries, then living stateside on support would put us in third-class missionary status. No sirree; I was not going to do that. It was hard enough raising support to live overseas, but stateside missionaries don’t excite anyone. We would get regular jobs that paid regular salaries and we would be regular Americans. So no matter how cool an opportunity sounded to me, if it required raising support, I was out.

But I have this wonderful friend, Alyssa, who has this habit of drilling into my soul. So when I told her my intention of finding a regular, non-support-raising job, she was not satisfied. “Why not?” she asked me. “What if God shows you the perfect job that is a perfect fit for you, but you have to raise support for it? Would you still say no?”

Of course, since I wanted to sound like a good Christian, I sighed and promised that I would do my best to keep an open mind to whatever God wanted me to do. But inwardly, my mind was still made up. No way. I’ve lived on support for 18 years. And I know what the American church thinks about third-class missionaries. It’s time to move on.

Throughout the fall, Gil and I had numerous conversations with various ministry leaders, some from Reach Global (our mission agency) and some with other organizations, all desiring to recruit us. They were support-raising positions, and some sounded pretty enticing. However, it was during this time that we came to the conclusion that we wanted to live in California, and that we wanted our kids in Christian schools. That meant either Gil or I would need to work for a Christian school in order to afford it. So it wasn’t difficult to say no to those opportunities.

Then came a call in late December from the leader of the Engage Division of Reach Global. He was encouraging me to consider joining their team as a Pre-Deployed Missionary Coach. The leader described the position: Interviewing potential missionary candidates, coaching and training accepted candidates, and helping them discover where in the world God was leading them.

Despite my best efforts to not be interested, I was instantly energized during this conversation. This would be a job I would love. This would be a job I would be good at. And I could do it from anywhere in the United States.

But I was still very determined that I did not want to accept a support-raising position. So it was off the table….right? Besides, either Gil or I needed to teach at a Christian school. That was the first priority. So I couldn’t say yes….right?

Yet, I couldn’t shake the idea that I was uniquely qualified for this job. Not only had I served in missions for 16 years, I also had been a missionary kid. During our years in Tanzania, I reveled in helping new missionaries adjust to life overseas. Being part of a missionary school, I worked with missionaries from a multitude of countries, ages, and seasons of life. I’ve experienced the ugly, the crazy, and the beautiful in missionary communities. I’ve been writing for A Life Overseas, a blog dedicated to missionaries, for five years. Promoting missions, and enabling missionaries to do their jobs well, is a passion of mine. Plus, I now have three years of experience in administration. Interviewing, hiring, coaching, and training have all been a part of my job as principal.

Yet I did not want to raise support. Period. I battled with God on this. I had done my time, right? This was my chance to be a regular person with a regular job. Meanwhile, Gil and I were busily applying to Christian school jobs all over California. Some teaching possibilities opened for me, but they were not in great locations for our family. So I kept those on hold.

Then in late May Gil got the perfect job at the perfect Christian school in the perfect location. And suddenly, I had no more excuses.

I talked to Alyssa again. “I really want to do the Engage job,” I told her. “But I just don’t want to raise support.” And Alyssa, in her kind but soul-drilling way, said to me, “Amy, you don’t whine very often. So when you do, I know you must be trying to avoid something that you know you are supposed to do.”

She got me. I knew she was right. So I forced myself to take a good hard look at why I was so opposed to taking a job that required me to raise support. And the picture that came to my mind was my friend Lois.

Lois was a widow. Lois supported us at $200 a month for several years as a widow. She developed cancer, and a few years I ago when we were in the States, I visited her in her nursing home. I talked with her about how grateful we were that she supported us so generously for so long. “It’s my pleasure,” she told me. “You know, I discussed this with my kids. They agreed that they didn’t need a big inheritance. They were okay with me giving away my money to missionaries.”

And I just sat there dumbfounded. I still am dumbfounded. Why would anyone do that? Why would someone make that kind of sacrifice? For me?

Lois died about six weeks after that meeting. Recounting that conversation still brings tears to my eyes. I have dozens of stories like this. There are so many who blow me away by their consistent, faithful, sacrificial generosity.

And I am humbled. That’s it. That’s the clincher. I realized that’s why I have been so opposed to staying on support. I think of Lois, and so many other scores of faces, and I am ground to the dust in gratitude. Basically that’s why I was kicking and screaming all this time: I was too proud to admit how much I didn’t want to be humbled. And knowing that I would be demoted to third-class missionary status didn’t help. Though I knew I would love doing this job, I wouldn’t have any cool Africa stories any more. I wouldn’t be on the “front lines.” I would be behind the scenes, which definitely isn’t very glamorous. I knew it would be a lot harder, and a lot more humbling, to raise the support I needed.

Which, when I finally admitted it to myself, was not a reason at all. As a child of God, if this is the job I am called to do, then I should welcome the big gulp of humility I must take by remaining dependent on God and His church to provide for my needs.

So about a month ago, I accepted the job. I will officially start in September, and I’ve made an initial commitment of two years. I am very excited, but nervously trusting that God is going to make this work.

And, for the first time ever on this blog, I’m asking you, my readers, if there are any out there who would be interested in joining my financial support team. If that could be you, then please read the information at the bottom of this post, or click on to the next post for answers to frequently asked questions.

Some of you may have been wondering what is going to happen to this blog now that I’m no longer in Africa, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that too. I know I need a re-design, and I’m working on that. One of the exciting parts of my new job is that it will allow me to continue to keep reading, thinking deeply, and writing about missions. I hope you’ll come along as I start Part 2 of my life as an enthusiastic, third-class missionary.

***

If you would like to partner with me in this role, pray for me, or support me financially, please read on…

If you would like to be on my mailing list (if you are not already), please email me at everyoneneedsalittlegrace(at)gmail.com and I would be happy to add you! No more cool Africa stories, but I will be sharing about how God is using me to send new missionaries around the world.

If you are interested in supporting me financially, you can go here to donate. All donations are tax deductible.

Remember, click on to the next post if you have additional questions about how this works.

The Happiest Kind of Sadness: Portrait of a Friendship

By Amy Medina

On June 15, 2019

In Leaving Tanzania, Thoughts on Missions

“I heard you are going to the clinic today,” I texted my friend Alyssa. “Would you mind taking in my kid’s urine sample?”

“Sure,” she texted back. And then we tried to figure out how to get it to her.

“Oh! Mark’s at the bakery with his prayer group,” she remembered. “Just take it to him there.”

This is when you know you’ve hit the level of BFF: You can hand a man bag of pee at the bakery with his prayer group and feel no shame.

****

By the time our lives crossed with Mark and Alyssa Dunker and Ben and Lauren Snyder, it was about six years into our Tanzanian life, and Gil and I were friend-weary. Both couples, in fact, had contributed to that–they had come into our lives for about a year, and then left. Like so many before them; like so many would after.

But the Dunkers and the Snyders were different, because even though we assumed we would never see them again, they came back to Tanzania. We still had our guard up, though. Friendships between missionaries can go deep and strong in a short amount of time, but they tend to not last very long. Best not to get too attached.

But life just kept throwing the six of us together.

Being part of Reach Global, that made us automatic “family.” The unwritten rules of missionary culture state that mission teammates stick together. You might have barely met these people, but they’re the first ones you ask when you need someone to watch your kids. There’s an assumption you’ll get invited for holiday dinners. When you can’t figure out how to debone a chicken or get a driver’s license or kill the ticks on your dog, they are the first ones you call. You know, like family. Except in a desperate, lonely, out-of-options sort of way. You don’t really have a choice. You either depend on these people, or die.

But with the Dunkers and the Snyders, our relationships became more than mission family. Because of Haven of Peace Academy and Reach Tanzania Bible School, our lives started overlapping and boomeranging back on themselves. The paths of our lives became a mega-highway, intersecting and crossing and merging all into one.

****

Think about all of your various friends. You’ve got your church friends, and your Bible study friends. There’s your work friends, and your soccer mom friends. There’s your friends who are the parents of your kids’ friends, and your community friends, who you keep running into in the grocery store or the local pool.

Now imagine you have a friend who falls into every category. Every single one. And then imagine that you just happen to be living in a foreign country with that friend.

You get the idea.

****

We were at Ben and Lauren’s house when Josiah took his first steps. Lauren and I planned Haven of Peace Academy’s first graduation ceremony together. The four of us shared a common love for HOPAC, and a common passion to see it get bigger, better, see its impact increase. Lauren served as school counselor, Gil as chaplain, and Ben quickly climbed from math teacher to director. I joined the board of directors for several years, then Ben and his team hired me as elementary principal.

I drove Mark and Alyssa around Dar es Salaam their first week, and I was with them when they bought their car. Alyssa and I bonded when she spent hours picking lice out of my hair. They came to Tanzania to train pastors, which, besides HOPAC, was our other passion. So when Gil decided it was time to leave HOPAC and start training pastors, we now had a reason to stay in Tanzania.The Dunkers had started a Bible school, and we enthusiastically joined in.

We grew together with the Snyders by building Haven of Peace Academy. We grew together with the Dunkers by building Reach Tanzania Bible School. Somewhere along the way it became the six of us. Sure, we had common interests–missions, adoption, politics, theology, culture–but I think it was common life more than common interests that brought us together.

It’s now been ten years. These ten years have not been easy on any of our three families–at many times bordering on tragic. At first we relied on each other because it just made sense–these were the people closest to us. But go through that enough times, and one day you realize that you really know these people. And they really know you, and they still like you. And you think, Wow, this is something really special.

In tangible ways, but also in very real emotional and spiritual ways, they kept us here. We kept them here.

****

Have you ever been in an emotionally intense situation–a short-term missions trip or a week-long camp, where you didn’t know anybody but formed deep friendships quickly? There is something about being away from home together, living in close quarters and experiencing intense emotions together that bonds people for life.

Now take that kind of experience and multiply it by five hundred.

****

I sit here in my quiet living room and watch the darkening sky, listening to the crows bidding goodnight and the crickets waking up. This small space, with the weird pink tiled floor and the couches we could never make very comfortable, is alive with memories.

I see the Christmases. The plastic gangly tree in the corner, the stockings strung across the window, the stale smell of air conditioning pushing out the stifling heat seeking to consume us. Many are here in the room, many we love and consider family, but they come and go during different years like Ebenezer’s ghosts. But the Dunkers and the Snyders, they are the constant. They are here every year.

I see Friday nights with my floor strewn with popcorn and my throw pillows with holes in them and the sweat stains on my couch from dozens of teenagers. Ben and Lauren are here in the midst of them, Ben and Gil playing basketball with the boys outside the window, the girls chatting with Lauren and me. Sometimes the power goes out. And we sit here in the dark and laugh hysterically and sweat even more.

I see Lauren and me on one of those Friday nights, sitting in that corner on the weird pink tile floor, the swirl of teenagers laughing around us, while I tell her about my trip to see Lily. And about another little girl named Zawadi, who also needed a family.

I see Alyssa and Lauren and I, all three of us on the well-worn carpet, weeping in prayer over Zawadi. Weeks and months and years.

I see movies projected on the wall while my kids snuggle in with Aunt Alyssa or Uncle Ben. And finally, Zawadi is there too.

I see the Medina and Snyder and Dunker kids sitting on that tile floor with their striped melamine plates filled with homemade pizza. Don’t sit on the carpet! I holler every time. They don’t. They know better. Because I say it every time.

****

There was also the traveling.

We went all over Tanzania together–for language school, for vacation, for HOPAC trips–to Zanzibar, Moshi, Lushoto, Kigomboni, Arusha. And then out of the country–Kenya, South Africa, even Slovenia.

It wasn’t always all six of us, and it was rarely just the six of us, but again, the Snyders and the Dunkers and Medinas were the common denominator. Together we navigated airports and taxis and foreign languages. We caravanned in our mini-vans and would stop on the side of the road for kids to pee. We would always send each other text messages about speed traps.

We took students to camp and on spiritual retreats, sports weekends and senior trips. We went to mission conferences and HOPAC conferences. We went to the mountains for the week after Christmas–every single year.

We sat around beach campfires and laughed about ridiculous inside jokes. The guys played board games for seemingly every waking hour. We prayed and played with students side by side. We explored other missionary schools together, collecting ideas that led to passionate conversations late into the night, planning together how to make our school better.

Every place, every drive, every airport, we wracked up more memories. Sometimes bad ones, most of them good.

****

Their friendships snuck up on me.

I was so used to holding loosely to missionary friendships that at first I didn’t even recognize the bonds, thin as gossamer webs, slowly beginning to pull us together. Events that seem insignificant, if there are enough of them, one day start becoming quite significant indeed. Building memories, after enough time, becomes building history.

And one day, several years ago, I woke up and realized that the Snyders and the Dunkers and the Medinas weren’t just family. When you work and play and grow and cry alongside each other, for so many years, the description is closer to siblings than anything else.

The day I came to that realization was also the day I began to grieve. I was in deep; I was past the point of no return. What we had was quite extraordinary, but what we had would never last. When you move overseas, there should be flashing red lights around a huge sign that reads, “Beware: Make friendships at your own risk. They will be amazing, but they will break your heart.”

But it will be the happiest kind of sadness.

****

It didn’t matter how many ways that our roads had intersected. At some point, we always knew they would diverge. None of us belong to this country. It would be just a matter of time before those paths would start going in opposite directions. The Snyders are leaving Tanzania. It’s the end of an era.

Of course, the friendship won’t end; that would be inconceivable. But it won’t ever be the same.

So I am grieving. I guess I always have been. That’s the danger of loving something or someone too much in this overseas life. I guess that’s the danger of loving anything in this fleeting life. There is no constant. There is no permanency. Not on this side of the veil, anyway.

But we do sometimes get glimpses of eternity in this fleeting life–a perfect sunset, delicious ice cream, a belly-laugh with a spouse or child, a resonant symphony. Extraordinary friendship fits into that category. What’s temporary now will one day be forever. And it will be glorious. How grateful I am to have had that glimpse.

Lily’s “Support Tree” in first grade: Mom, Dad, Uncle Ben, Aunt Lauren, Uncle Mark, Aunt Alyssa

Is Missions a Joke? Answering the Critics

By Amy Medina

On August 11, 2018

In A Life Overseas, Thoughts on Missions

I came off the mission field with a new mission which is to burn down missions.

~Jamie Wright

Before I post my writing, I often will ask Gil to read it and give me advice. Occasionally I’ve asked a friend or my parents to read something before I publish it. And the editor of A Life Overseas always helps me with those blog posts. But the piece you’ll see below hit a new record for me–eight editors, the most I’ve ever asked for.

That’s because what I wrote here is very important to me. I hope you will read it.

I came off the mission field with a new mission which is to burn down missions. ~Jamie Wright

You come [to the mission field] with the veil of, ‘I’m called, not qualified’ and then when everything falls to s*** and you decide to go back home, it completely negates the authority of the God you said called you in the first place. And it’s just a damaging cycle that just goes on and on. ~Emily Worrall

Missionaries are trying to save themselves. There’s this sense of ‘God is going to come through for me.’ So you have a lot–a lot–of addiction…tons and tons and tons of sexual sin. Deeply wounded people who need help, who need therapy, who need support systems. But we give them permission to leave all that behind and go to a foreign country where it is all exacerbated and everything gets way worse. It’s a rampant problem in long-term missions. ~Jamie Wright

The long-term missionary lifestyle is almost, like, insidious. Because long-term missionaries are the ones really using the manipulative language. They are really misrepresenting their purpose and the necessity for them to live in these other countries. Or they are hiding information about their behavior or the things they are doing. It’s just not good. There are so many people living abroad on the church-dime who have no accountability. It’s really ugly. ~Jamie Wright

Corey Pigg: They [our organization] were sending us out to the 10/40 window.

Jamie Wright: Yes, the 10/40 window. Everybody loves that.

Corey: They felt it was imperative that we went to closed nations to be superheroes. Because those are the last places that need to hear the gospel.

Jamie. Which is hilarious. ……All that matters is that you use the lingo.

Corey: That’s what sells, right?

Hi, I’m Amy Medina, and I’m a missionary.

I was a missionary kid in Liberia and Ethiopia for six years of my childhood. I’m now 41 years old and have been living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for fourteen years as an evangelical Christian missionary. My husband trains pastors and I am the elementary school principal at Haven of Peace Academy. We’ve adopted four Tanzanian kids.

We live off of the financial gifts of churches and friends from the States. We write newsletters every month. We use phrases like “fruit of our ministry” and “unreached people groups” and “discipleship.” I blog. And my blog header has zebras on it. And a rainbow encircling an orphan.

So is my life a joke?

I’ve been mulling over what I read in Jamie Wright’s memoir, The Very Worst Missionary: A Memoir or Whatever and what I heard in the “Failed Missionary” podcasts with Corey Pigg, Emily Worrall of Barbie Savior, and Jamie Wright. I’ve known all along that some non-Christians scoff at my life as a misguided, ridiculous attempt to “save the world,” but I must admit I was surprised to find out that there are some of “our own” who feel the same way–and are loudly proclaiming it.

Ironically, I actually agree with a lot of what these critical voices have to say about missions. I believe that “calling” can be misguided and even idolatrous. I believe that missionaries need to be well-vetted, well-trained, and held accountable. I’m confident that there is a temptation among missionaries to hide their struggles and beef up their successes. I believe that the “white savior complex” is real and sinister, and I definitely hold that Americans need to stop shipping stuff overseas for poor people. And I do think that missions in general, but especially short-term missions, can often bring more harm than help.

So I don’t believe we should write off these critical voices. If we stand against them with scowling faces and hands over our ears, angry at their profanity or their bluntness or their criticism of our sacred cows, then we walk right into the realm of the Pharisees. I’m not saying we have to agree with everything they say or how they say it, but we need to listen.

The truth is, it’s not a bad thing to knock missionaries off those pedestals. And it’s not a bad thing for us missionaries to ask ourselves the hard questions, or for those who send us to ask those questions of us.

Why did I really become a missionary?

Was I running away from something? Was I just looking for more meaning in my life? Was I thinking that missions would elevate my life to a higher spiritual level?

Does my dependence on financial support make me cover up the truth or portray myself as something I am not?

Am I afraid of what would happen if people could see bank records or my internet history, or if they saw what a day in my life really looked like?

Am I really the best person at this time and in this place to be doing this job? Am I submitting myself to accountability? Am I humbling myself and my ideas to the local people?

Almost my entire life has been devoted to missions, in one way or another. And I’ve seen what these critics are talking about. I’ve seen terrible short-term teams who offend the local people or steal jobs in a struggling economy. In rare instances, I’ve known of missionaries who preach the gospel on Sunday and have affairs during the week. More commonly, I’ve seen ignorance and arrogance and racism among missionaries–including myself.

But my conclusion is different. I don’t believe missions needs “gasoline and a match,” as Jamie writes in her memoir.

Really what it comes down to is this: Do we have a message worth sharing?

The data suggests we do.

Read the rest here.

Missionaries are Supposed to Suffer….So Am I Allowed to Eat Lobster?

By Amy Medina

On July 27, 2016

In Thoughts on Missions

I’m going to let you in on one of missionaries’ biggest secrets: They are terrified to tell you about their vacations.

(Noooooo!!! I can hear my missionary friends protesting. Not that! Write about anything but that!!!) Sorry friends. I’ve got this reputation of revealing to the world what missionaries aren’t telling you.

Missionaries are supposed to suffer, so am I allowed to eat lobster?

Some of our good friends just went to the States on home assignment. Their son had just graduated from high school and some of his best friends now live in Europe. Since their flights took them through Europe, they extended their time there to three weeks. They had a wonderful time, but they made sure to write and explain to their supporters that they stayed with friends the entire time, and never paid for any hotels.

Other missionary friends spent a few weeks in Europe the traditional way, in low-key hotels and touristy sight-seeing. They had saved up for this trip during their entire marriage and they figured that doing it on their way home from Africa would make good financial sense. I was excited for my friends and encouraged them to post lots of pictures on Facebook. “I don’t know,” my friend told me. “If we do post pictures, we’ll have to only allow certain people to see them. I’m afraid of what people will think.”

Another missionary friend’s mother paid for the two of them to take a Mediterranean cruise. When she told me, she made sure I knew it was top-top secret. I think only two or three other people ever knew about it–before or after.

This past weekend, we spent four nights at a beach house about two hours away. The house is a bit rustic, with no hot water and only solar lighting, but it’s beautiful, and perched on the most amazing beach I have ever experienced. The owner of the house included a seafood dinner for free, with more lobster than we could ever stuff ourselves with. Eat away, I told my kids. You might never get it again in your childhood. This is the kind of place where the beauty and serenity fills your soul and makes you a better person.

And it costs less than staying at a cheap motel in the States.

See? I had to throw that in there.

I’ll say it again: Missionaries are terrified to tell you about their vacations. (Pastors too, just in case you were wondering.)

After all, missionaries are supposed to suffer. And how dare we raise support from people’s sacrificial giving and then use it for a vacation?

The struggle is real, folks. We are afraid of your criticism or disappointment. And for good reason, since we’ve all heard stories of missionaries who lost support as soon as people found out about their vacation.

I understand that this is a tricky issue–because it’s a heart issue. I’m sure there are missionaries who make selfish or unhealthy financial decisions–just like lots of other Christians. I am all about accountability, and godly priorities, and fighting against our instinct to make comfort or wealth an idol. But if it’s acceptable for other Christians to take vacations, if they are living generously, wisely, and with a heavenly mindset, then why can’t missionaries do so as well?

After all, doesn’t all of our money belong to God, no matter how we acquire it?

So go out and ask your favorite missionaries to tell you about their vacations. Assure them that you won’t judge. Be happy for them, just like you would be for your other friends. Because honestly? I am excited to share these pictures. This kind of beach is one of the major perks of living in Tanzania. We had a wonderful time, and it’s fun to share it with you.