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In Defense of Second-Class Missionaries

I posted at A Life Overseas today, and this time I revised an essay I wrote on this blog two years ago.  It’s a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and I wanted it to reach a broader audience.

It must have hit a nerve, because six hours later, it’s already been shared 150 times.  

Many of your missionary friends are aching for you to read and understand this.  Even if you read my original post two years ago, please read this new one today.  It’s that important.

As I write today, a thought that is forefront on my mind is Haven of Peace Academy’s need for teachers for next school year.  We are at the point of feeling desperate (yet knowing–and remembering to believe–that this is God’s school and we can trust Him.)  I am deeply passionate about the important and very strategic ministry at HOPAC, and I want to shout, “Why is it so hard for us to find teachers?  And once we find them, why is it so hard for them to find support?”  How can I help churches back at home get this?

Maybe reading this today will help give you a different perspective.  I hope so.

In Defense of Second-Class Missionaries

Imagine what it would look like if western churches
hired their staff with the same priorities that they choose overseas missionaries
to financially support.

First of all, a Children’s Pastor would
definitely be out.  Not strategic enough; he’s only supporting the
children of believers.  Youth Pastor?  Also out, unless he
targets neighborhood kids.

How about a Music Pastor?  Or Pastoral
Counselor
?  Nope.  Those are just support roles.  Not enough
front-line ministry.

Administrative Pastor?  Receptionist?  Good heavens.
 We could never dream of paying someone for those kind of inconsequential jobs. 

How about a Preaching Pastor?
 Well…..that’s if-y, but he probably doesn’t make the cut either.
 After all, he’s only feeding the Body.  Most of the time, he’s not
actually reaching the lost. 

So that pretty much leaves only the positions of Community
Outreach Pastor
 or Evangelist.  Yet how many churches
even have those paid positions? 

I’m not suggesting that churches go about firing
two-thirds of their staff.  I just want to talk about a double-standard I
often see.

Let me introduce you
to the class system among missionaries. 

Who is on the A-List?  Well, that would be
the Church Planters.  Among unreached people groups gives you A+ status.
 Pastoral Trainers and Bible Translators might be able to
squeak by with an A.

The B-List?  Doctors and other health workers,
community development and poverty alleviation workers, ESL teachers.

The C-List?  Administrators, missionary
member care, MK teachers, or anyone else considered “support.”

Whatever tends to be the current hot-topic
in “justice ministry” also often ends up on the A-List.  These days, that’s fighting human
trafficking.  It used to be orphan
ministry, but that’s pretty much been relegated to B-status now.  It’s cool, but not that cool. 

Granted, this class system doesn’t usually
originate with the missionaries themselves, but it’s come out of the culture of
missions in their home countries.  How
many missionaries have sat before missions committees back home who examined if
they fit into their “grid” of priorities? 
And often that grid looks exactly like the hierarchy I just outlined.

My husband and I worked for eight years in TCK
ministry at an international school. 
When trying to raise support, we called and sent information packets to
over 200 churches in California.  We heard back from two.  Churches
told us, over and over again, Sorry, but that ministry doesn’t fit into
our strategy.  

That all changed when we transitioned to theological
training of East African pastors.  Finally, we had churches calling us.
 It was nice.  But frankly, kind of frustrating.  We didn’t change
ministries so that we would become more popular with churches.  We
switched because that’s where God was leading us.  But the truth is, we
don’t consider theological training to be any more strategic, or any more exciting,
than what we were doing at that international school. 

Unfortunately, the missionaries themselves are often acutely aware of this
hierarchy, and it makes many feel like they are second-class. 



Read the rest here.  (And then share it!)

Please Ask Me the Non-Spiritual Questions

I’m over at A Life Overseas today with a plea for our friends at home….

When we’re on furlough and giving presentations about our
ministry as missionaries, we always end with, “Does anyone have any questions?”

A hand goes up.  And
the question is inevitable. 

“How can we pray for you?” 
Every. Single. Time.

Sometimes someone will ask to know more about our
ministry.  Or a person we are investing
in.  Or maybe, “What has God been
teaching you?”

The questions, almost
always, are spiritual. 


This is not a bad thing. 
Of course, we’re thrilled people want to pray for us.  We are excited if they are excited about our ministry.  But do you know what we long to be asked?

The non-spiritual questions.


Sure, our ministry is extremely important to us.  But that’s only part of the picture of our lives overseas.  We moved to the other side of the world.  We landed in a country that most people only
see on the news.  We had to learn new
ways of shopping, cooking, eating, sleeping, educating, traveling, parenting,
and talking.  It was not easy.  In fact, it was the hardest thing we’ve ever
done. 

We are different people now. And it is bursting out of us.  We might look the same on the outside, but we
are totally different on the inside.  And
you know what?  We long to talk about it with you. 
We desperately want you to be
interested in all of our other life,
not just the spiritual parts. 


My husband and I have been missionaries for 13 years
now.  And I must admit:  The people back home who ask us the
non-spiritual questions are few and far between.  In fact, they are so rare that they stand out
in my memory by name. 

I’m not sure why there are so few people who ask the
non-spiritual questions.  I think that
sometimes, folks just don’t know where to start.  Or maybe they think that they already should
know all those things and they don’t want to look stupid.  Or maybe they just assume that we don’t
really want to talk about such mundane things. 
(After all, we’re super spiritual…right?)

So let me just re-iterate: 
Please, ask us the non-spiritual
questions.
  We missionaries would love to answer them. 

Not sure where to start? 

That’s easy.  Start with what you are interested in.


Read the rest over here at A Life Overseas.


Dear Supporter, There’s So Much More I Wish I Could Tell You

Dear Supporter,

I wrote you a newsletter today.  I told you about the success in our ministry, about the lives being touched and the happy stories.  Everyone was smiling in all the pictures.  But there is so much more I wish I could tell you.

I wish I could tell you that lots of times I feel like a total failure.  I’ve asked you to pray for the Big Event, or the Camp Sign-Ups, or the Grand Opening.  You might not realize that afterwards, I don’t always tell you how it went.  That’s because sometimes, despite weeks of hard work and lots of prayer, the event is a total flop.  Five people show up.  Or no one.  And I can’t bring myself to tell you.

Then there’s the time when I realize that I’ve hurt a national friend.  Or a missionary colleague and I are having a huge conflict.   Or I’ve made a major cultural mistake.  Or I’m just not learning this language.  Or everything blows up in my face.  There are many, many times when I wonder why I’m here, or if I really am the right person for this job.  But I’m afraid to tell you, because then I think you will wonder why I’m here or if I am the right person for this job.

I wish I could tell you about my personal struggles.  Sometimes I feel like you make me out to be more spiritual than I am, but I wish you knew that becoming a missionary didn’t turn me into a saint.  In fact, sometimes I think it brings out the worst in me.  I wish I could tell you about the immobilizing depression or the fights with my spouse.  I wish I could tell you that my anxiety was so bad that I needed to travel to another country to see a professional counselor.  I wish I could tell you about that time my friend was robbed at gunpoint in his home, and I couldn’t sleep for weeks afterward.

I wish you knew that I hate it here sometimes, and there’s nothing more I want than to go home.  But I know I need to stay, so I don’t tell you because I’ve heard the stories of friends forced to go home because they confided in the wrong person.   I don’t tell you because I can’t imagine you would want to support such a flawed person.

Read the rest over at A Life Overseas.  

How Do I Make Goals for 2017 When I Know I Can’t Meet Them?


Missionaries are experts in high expectations. 

I mean, who else has a job like this?  Most of us went through a stringent interview process just to get here.  Pages of applications, hours of interviews, weeks of training, our references were asked for more references.  We are held up as examples of godliness.  We have high expectations of the kind of people we will be.

And then, once we are accepted, our pictures are placed in the foyers of churches and on family refrigerators all over the country.  We are paraded around like celebrities.  Not only are we expected to write strategic plans every year and submit them to our supervisors and our supporting churches, but then we are required to write monthly reports to hundreds of stakeholders.  If it feels like they have really high expectations for how we will perform, well, our own expectations are probably even higher.   After all, if we are going to sacrifice so much, if we are going to ask others to sacrifice so much on behalf of us, then we better see results.

Based on our yearly goals (or you could call them glorified New Year’s Resolutions), and the amount of accountability we receive, missionaries should be the world’s most productive and healthy people.  And really, the world should be saved by now.  Right?

On one hand, I’m thankful for this aspect of missionary life.  I am a goal-oriented person, and I like the accountability.  I think it’s a great thing to think long-term about how we are going to accomplish what God is calling us to do.

On the other hand, we just never reach those expectations, do we?  We move overseas, and it brings out the worst in us.  As a spouse.  As a parent.  As a friend.  As a minister to others.  And as for our ministry?  What we felt called to do?  What we felt called to be?  Well, that just never goes as we planned.  And sometimes it’s even a total disaster.

So how do we find that balance?  How do we set goals for ourselves, for our ministry, when we have experienced disappointment and failure?  When we’ve been betrayed by too many friends?  How do we temper the anxiety of not being able to reach the expectations of those who are holding us up?

After 15 years as a missionary, it’s true that my early idealism was smashed a long time ago.  You know those times of wonderful rejoicing, when all is going the way it should?  Well, it just takes one stumble, one new piece of information, and suddenly it all falls apart.  What seems like a happy ending can still turn tragic in the end. 

Does this make me cynical?  It can, sometimes.  

Rest the rest hereover at A Life Overseas.

Don’t Ask Me About My Christmas Traditions

beach-2

My first Christmas on African soil was when I had just turned six years old.  We had arrived in Liberia only three weeks earlier, and my mom was in the throes of major culture shock.  My parents had shipped over a few presents, but nothing else for Christmas.  My mom managed to find a two-foot plastic tree at a store, and decorated it with tiny candy canes wrapped in cellophane.  After just a few days, the candy canes turned into puddles inside their wrappers.  My mom says it was the most depressing Christmas she’s ever had. 

liberia-1

Our first Liberian Christmas: My brother and I with our punching balloons, and my sad Mama.

I remember that Christmas, but the funny thing is, I thought it was great.  I remember being concerned how Santa would get into our house without a chimney, but my parents assured me they would leave the door unlocked.  We had a tree, we were together, and it was Christmas.  I was happy.

Fast forward 25 years to when I started raising my own TCKs in tropical Africa.  I was a young mother around the time when social media was really taking off, and I felt suffocated under the expectations of creating a magical Christmas for my children, complete with handmade crafts and meaningful traditions. Not only that, but I was quite literally suffocating in a southern hemisphere tropical climate.  There weren’t going to be any pine trees or snuggling up in pajamas while going out to see Christmas lights.  In fact, the only festivity to be found in our city was a five-foot high, mechanical, singing Santa in our grocery store that terrified my two-year-old and made her run away screaming.

We can tell ourselves that “Jesus is the reason for the season”—and even believe it—but we all know that we have expectations for Christmas to be more than that.  The traditions, the parties, the “magic,” even the cold weather, all are wrapped up in what we dream Christmas is “supposed” to be.

Ever wonder what Christmas is like for those of us living in a different country?  Click hereto read the rest of this post over at A Life Overseas.

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