Amy Medina

You want to get me on a soapbox? Ask me this question.

Maybe some of you didn’t even know that Christians are asking this question. Depends on the church you attend, probably. But there are some churches who aren’t even supporting long-term missionaries any more. They have consciously decided to only support national workers and short-term missionaries.

These are the reasons:
1. National missionaries already know the language.
2. National missionaries already know the culture.
3. National missionaries are significantly cheaper than western missionaries.

Agreed. No problem agreeing there.

But these arguments leave out other important factors:
1. There are many, many people groups in the world who have yet to have one believer in their midst. Who will reach them?
2. There are many, many people groups in the world who do have an established church, but they have no missionary mindset to try to reach other groups.
3. There are many, many national believers who would love to share the gospel but have no training, often not even a high school diploma, let alone Bible training. Often they don’t even own a Bible. In Africa, often a pastor of a church won’t even own an entire Bible. Or maybe one for the entire congregation. And it probably won’t be translated into their heart language.

Missions in general is undergoing a huge shift in priorities. This is a very, very good thing. I totally agree that missions in the past was often very influenced by imperialism and ethnocentrism. Not good; not biblical–even though they did accomplish much good.

The attitude used to be: We come in; we do the work; we build it up; you depend on us.

Now, the attitude is increasingly more: We come in; we teach you to do the work; you build it up; you depend on God.

Much better.

However, short-term teams, with all of their advantages, cannot do this. Not even in a year. Or two years, depending on the country, especially if language learning is a part. Maybe more like 10 years…or longer.

And yes, the idea is for the nationals to do it. We agree that often they can do the work much better than us. One of the reasons we love teaching at HOPAC is because 40% of the kids are Tanzanian. From upper-class families. These are the kids who will go on to be the politicians, the lawyers, the movers-and-shakers. They really do have a chance to make a difference in their country and for the Kingdom. And this is the reason that one day Gil would love to be involved with training African pastors.

I love that our mission organization is not interested in just planting churches. They are interested in church planting movements. Planting churches that then plant more churches that then plant more.

Another thing to remember is that Jesus said, “Go.” Even to the ends of the earth. All believers fall into this category. All churches should be sending missionaries, not just money. I love to see this at work here in Dar es Salaam. The missionaries here are definitely not all American! We know Danish families who publish and distribute Christian literature throughout Tanzania. We know Australian families who are working on Bible translation. We know a Spanish family who is working with drug addicts. And we know Korean, Finnish, and British families who are planting churches. All of these families send their kids to HOPAC.

Did you know some of these countries are even sending missionaries to the U.S.? That’s how it should be. All churches should be senders. All nationals (including American nationals) should be missionaries.

I could go on, but I will stop after one more thought.

Missions is popular these days. Almost every Christian under the age of 30 (and many above 30) have been on at least one short-term missions trip. And there are many who are commiting to serve for a few months, even a year. This is great.

But do you know what is not popular? Career missions. The number of people who want to give their lives to career overseas missons has stagnated. It shouldn’t be this way. John Piper says that every year he takes some time to evaluate his life and ask God if He wants him overseas. What would happen if every Christian did that?

Only kids ask us this question. But maybe you have wondered too.

No. We do not live with wild animals (unless you count two toddlers). There are 5 million people in this city so I’m guessing the wild animals probably got scared off.

On a daily basis, I see our two dogs. I also see cows, goats, and lots of chickens milling about our neighborhood.

Daily there are geckos on the walls in my house, but they eat the mosquitoes, so I don’t mind. There is currently a yellow tree frog living in our toilet that we can’t manage to catch. Sometimes I see large cockroaches, which then receive a very large dosage of insect spray. Sometimes we see other large, interesting bugs, but not in my house. Occasionally we see snakes in our yard, but the dogs always kill them. Probably the craziest thing I have seen in my yard was a 4 foot long monitor lizard.

However, Tanzania is home to multiple game reserves which are amazingly awesome to visit. We have been to five of them; the closest is about a four hour drive from here. The Serengeti is in Tanzania, which is probably the most well-known game reserve, and home of The Lion King.

Come visit us and we’ll take you there!

Every day: Grace and Josiah (do I need to describe that? Probably very similar to how it would look anywhere in the world: books, crayons, balls, puzzles, “No, we don’t lick the table,” picking up toys over and over and over…you know what I mean.)

Every day: Cook meals. Except for Tuesdays when Gil and I go out. Sometimes Fridays before youth group we also will go out and get a pizza, or mishkaki (meat) and chips at the hole-in-the-wall nearby. I also bake a couple times a week: cookies for youth group, breakfast food (banana bread, muffins, etc.) Cereal costs a small fortune here so we rarely buy it.

Wednesdays: Grocery shopping

Usually at least one other day per week is used for running errands: paying bills, tracking down social workers, etc. Sometimes this feels like a part-time job.

Monday and Thursday mornings: walk to school, teach sixth grade Bible. Esta takes care of the kids.

Tuesday mornings: teach chapel for elementary kids. My kids come with me.

Monday afternoons: our mission prayer meeting

Friday nights: Youth group

Saturdays: often go to the pool at a nearby hotel

Sundays: church and nap!

Other: Families, friends, students here for dinner…sometimes a friend of mine will come for lunch. Friday mornings I try to get Grace and Josiah to a playgroup if we don’t have other errands to run. Host students for a few days at a time when their parents are away. Host people who are visiting Tanzania. Watch students’ soccer or basketball games. Visit HOPAC’s library with Grace. Attend other HOPAC events. Tonight, in fact, my husband is doing a seminar for parents on the media’s impact on young people.

During nap time and sometimes in the evenings: organize the after-school program each term, write emails, do our financial reports for the mission each month, work on my MA classes, write prayer updates and prayer letters, blog.

Remember: I don’t do any of my own cleaning or laundry. That frees up a lot of time!

I get this question a lot. It’s usually asked with a degree of uncertainty, as if the person were saying, “Is it possible for an American to like living in Africa?”

Do I like living in Tanzania? Well, I would certainly hope so. My life would be pretty miserable if I didn’t.

There are a million things I love about Tanzania. Purple and pink and white bougainvillea, the sparkling Indian ocean with the temperature of bath water, delicious vegetables and tropical fruit, the friendliness and openness of Tanzanians, the richness of the African and Indian cultures present in the city, the smell of the rain. I feel less pressure here to look a certain way or buy certain things. I like being away from television. I like being away from consumerism. I like that living here makes us appreciate the little things of life more.

More significant is that Gil and I absolutely love working at HOPAC. As I said before, it is a perfect fit for us. For me personally, ministry at HOPAC has been exhilarating. I love kids; I love teaching; I love education as a field. During these last 4 years, I haven’t been teaching full time, and my role at HOPAC has lessened as our family has grown. But HOPAC is a young school (about 15 years old), which means that a lot of things are still “a work in progress” and Gil and I have had the fabulous opportunity to really be instrumental in getting a lot of things going. It is so fulfilling to not just be a part of the school, but to be a part of making it even better. For example, during the last four years, I’ve had a part in getting a staff/parents association going, providing opportunities for parents to support staff, getting an after-school program up and running, tutoring ESL kids, helping with the recruitment program, writing a handbook for new teachers, establishing a counseling policy, teaching elementary chapel once a week, assisting with drama, starting a service emphasis week, helping with a service learning class, starting a schoolwide memory verse program, and chaperoning field trips. Gil’s list would be even longer. Among many other things, Gil has set the Bible curriculum for the entire jr. high and high school. I love this! Not only do I love the vision of HOPAC, but I love that we are able to really be a part of building the school’s foundation.

Of course this doesn’t mean that I love everything here. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that we do face different kinds of challenges that we would in the States. But the hardest part, by far, is being so far away from family and friends. I tell new missionaries all the time, “You’ll get used to the way of life in about 6-9 months, but you never get used to missing the people you love.” But we definitely have it better than missionaries a generation ago, with the advent of the internet and cheaper air travel. And is there really anywhere in the world where life is perfect?