Friday was Haven of Peace Academy’s annual International Day. I was standing in line at the Lebanese booth, waiting not-so-patiently for my hummus and pita bread and spinach-stuffed pastry, and chatting with the people next to me. They were a new teacher at HOPAC and his wife, who have only been here a few months, and I asked him how it’s going.
“I love my job here,” he told me. “I worked at a public school in the States before this, and I used to dread going to work every day. Now I get up in the morning and can’t wait to get to school.”
No one paid him to make that statement. In fact, HOPAC gives him nothing but a housing allowance, and I’m certain he is living off of less than he did in the States. It’s hard to raise support and it’s hard to live in a developing country and sometimes tropical heat is just plain….hard. But nothing beats the feeling of getting up in the morning and loving your job.
There’s also nothing that beats the feeling of knowing your kids love going to school. That even if ministry is overwhelming and you miss your mom and the car has a flat tire for the third time in a month–at least your kids love school. And you know that they are being loved and challenged and stretched intellectually and spiritually. That’s the amazing gift that HOPAC teachers give us.
Haven of Peace Academy is always looking for teachers who love Jesus and love the nations. Know anyone I could talk to? Please put them in touch with me.
International Day 2015
all pictures by Abi Snyder
My kiddos performed this year! This past summer, a few other moms and I hired three talented senior boys to teach our kids African dance. Our kids absolutely loved it and they all did a great job!
Youth Ministry is filled with lots of, um, drama. We loved our students, but there were many nights Gil and I would stay awake fretting over their poor decisions or self-destructive behavior. And that’s not even counting for what we would basically call….immaturity.
Sometimes we wondered if anything we said was making a difference. Our whole hearts were poured into these kids, and yet often I thought they really just showed up for the caramel popcorn.
Like anything worth waiting for, we just had to be patient. Our years of youth ministry are over, but we are just now getting the privilege of seeing the fruit. This summer was great evidence of that. So many of our former students were in Tanzania this summer, many of them visiting their families, but others coming back on their own, pilgrimages to the country where they grew up.
And the cool thing is that they looked us up. We want to see you! They said. Sweeter words are never heard to a youth minister’s heart. They wanted to see us!
They are adults now, all grown up, yet full of that infectious excitement of youth adulthood. Succeeding in school, getting advanced degrees, earning awards. But more importantly, caring about people, passionate for Africa, following Jesus.
There were so many here this summer that we didn’t even get to spend time with them all. If that was you….we still love you! Come see us next time!
Cecilie and her friend introduced us to the Danish tradition of making a birthday cake to look like the child….and then making the first cut at the neck while everyone screams. Obviously a good way to keep Danish psychiatrists in business.
McKenna was an intern with us for six weeks this summer. She wasn’t one of our HOPAC students, but she was one of our flower girls when she was 3, so she falls in the same category!
Imagine what it would look like for an American church to hire their staff with the same priorities that they chose 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 a support roles. Not enough front-line ministry.
Administrative Pastor? Receptionist? Good heavens. We could never dream of paying someone for those kind of inconsequential support roles.
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 American churches even have those paid positions?
I’m not suggesting that churches go about firing two-thirds of their staff. I just want to point out a bit of a double-standard.
Recently, a friend told me, Oh, I could never consider taking a position at Haven of Peace Academy. I know my church would never take me on for a support role.
And from a current teacher at HOPAC, We love what we do at HOPAC, but we feel like our supporters just want to see pictures of the street kids ministry, even though that only takes up two hours of our week.
And from another teacher when hosting a short-term team: The team gets most excited about the ministry to the poor kids. They don’t seem to understand the importance of reaching HOPAC kids.
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, poverty alleviation, ESL workers.
The C-List? Administrators, missionary member care, MK teachers, or anyone else considered “support.”
This is definitely not our imagination, and any missionary I know will confirm it. When trying to raise support for our years at Haven of Peace Academy, 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.
When our ministry changed to Pastoral Training, we had churches calling us. It was nice. But frankly, kind of frustrating.
We didn’t switch 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 Pastoral Training to be any more strategic, or any more exciting, than Haven of Peace Academy.
HOPAC is training the next generation of Tanzania’s leaders in a biblical worldview. Over 50% of HOPAC’s students are Tanzanian, most from influential families.
Perhaps equally, or even more important, HOPAC is enabling missions in Tanzania. Young Life and SIL/Wycliffe have established their East African headquarters in Dar because of HOPAC! Dozens of other organizations are able to minister here as well.
Oh come on, I can hear you saying. Can’t all those families just homeschool? Yes, if they had to. A lot of missionary families don’t have another choice. But imagine trying to homeschool your kids, and simultaneously, become fluent in another language, and learn to drive, shop, cook, clean, pay bills, play, and rest in an entirely different way. Without any homeschool groups or co-ops or craft stores. Sound fun?
Look at it this way. You can either financially support a missionary mom to (possibly reluctantly) homeschool her four kids, or you can financially support a missionary teacher (who’s called to it) to teach 25. It’s not like the mom is going to sit on her hands all day. She’ll be right out there working in ministry.
I’m particularly passionate about MK education, but I could say the same things for all the other so-called “support” roles in missions. I just wrote my last three posts about the often harsh realities of life overseas. Yet when Christians stand up and say, I’m called to missionary care! I’m called to teach MK’s! I’m called to missions administration!, the churches say, Well, sorry, you don’t fit in our strategy. We’d rather get behind the exciting church planters and the pastoral trainers.Except, we expect them to do it without all the other people they need to be successful.
I sit on the board of governors at Haven of Peace Academy. At almost every meeting, we bang our heads against the wall, asking ourselves, How are we going to get enough teachers? Every year, it’s a problem. Every year, we pray and plead and try to get more creative with recruitment.
But you want to know the reality? Churches are just not as interested in supporting teachers. Heck, even missions organizations are not as interested in supporting teachers.
Listen, I’m all about strategy in missions. But can we expand our idea of what strategy means? Missionaries, as an extension of the Church, must function as the Body of Christ. Could the American Church function by only hiring evangelists? I realize that missions has different goals–we are working ourselves out of a job; we are doing everything we can to replace ourselves with national believers. But to get there, we need the Body of Christ.
We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. (Romans 12)
The legs can’t do anything without the arms and fingers and neck. So go out today and find your nearest missionary accountant or counselor or MK teacher. Remind them they are never second-class.
For the next school year, HOPAC is still looking for an Operations Manager, an Elementary Teacher, a P.E. teacher, a Librarian, and a Special Needs Teacher.
My parents are passionate about prayer, and the prayers of my parents have shaped my life. Sometimes even when they didn’t realize that the subject of their prayers was me.
In the mid-90’s, my Dad was missions chairman of Hillside Church. He had a vision for our church to partner with a team serving an unreached people group. He prayed God would show him the country and the team, and it turned out to be a Reach Global group working in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The partnership began in 1996, and Hillside began sending out teams to Tanzania (over 20 teams in a decade!). My Dad led Team #1.*
My parents prayed that God would build and grow and train His Church in Dar es Salaam. They prayed that God would shine His light on those communities that had never heard the gospel. They prayed that God would send a Hillside member to be a full-time worker in Tanzania.
During that first exploratory trip, one of the things my Dad did was prayer-walk on the coconut plantation which was later to become Haven of Peace Academy’s campus. He stood by the giant baobab tree which bisected nothing but rows of coconut trees, and prayed for God’s blessing on the fledgling school that had a vision of expansion.
In 1998, I was on Hillside Team #5 with three other college students. We came to provide English camps for a group serving the Indian community in Dar. We were also introduced to Haven of Peace Academy. I always knew I wanted to be a missionary teacher, but when I found out about HOPAC, I was hooked.
My parents never, ever pressured Gil or me about any major life decisions–and they never intentionally planted the idea of serving in Tanzania in our heads. They never prayed that Gil and I would be the answer to their prayers.
Yet in 2001, God led us to Tanzania. He led Gil to join the team serving the Indian Community that I had joined on Team #5. He led me to HOPAC–and later, Gil too. And now God is using us to train His Church in Dar.
And it all started with my parents’ prayers.
My parents were here visiting the last two weeks, and the time was filled with card games and water balloons and sight-seeing and long talks after the kids went to bed. I am blessed that my parents are some of my best friends and my biggest cheerleaders. I am incredibly thankful for their lives of service, sacrifice, and passion.
But today, I am mostly thankful that they pray.
*Special note for other RG and/or Hillside folks: Ironically, for those of you who know him, Kevin Kompelien–the pastor of Hillside–was also on that first Tanzania team. Kevin later became the Reach Global director for Africa and is now the candidate for president of the Evangelical Free Church of America. Seems like my parents’ prayers affected more than just us.
