Tag: Thoughts on Missions Page 8 of 13

I’m Not Faking the Joy

On February 4, 2017

In the summer of 2003, Gil and I returned from our first term in Tanzania. We had been broken in just about every way imaginable. I had been mentally ill for at least a year of our two-year term. We had been criticized and left on our own in ministry. We had no idea what we were doing in our very young marriage and hurt each other deeply. And the guy we invested in most had stolen from us.

But we had more disillusionment waiting for us back home in California. Though we had been sent out with much fanfare, our return was a lot less enthusiastic. Not one group in our home church asked us to share about our time in Tanzania. So we put together two evenings in our home for people to come hear about it. We sent out about 50 personalized invitations to all our supporters and friends. We cleaned our little apartment and I spent the afternoon cooking Tanzanian food. The first evening, four people came. The second one, no one came.

It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Gil and I both slipped into depression.

Yet despite all of that, two years later, we went back to Tanzania. And now it’s been almost 13 years. So what does that make us? Saints? Martyrs? Angels? or….Stupid?

No.

We did it for the joy.

Earlier this week, many of you read the post I wrote for A Life Overseas, called Dear Supporter, There’s So Much More I Wish I Could Tell You. I wrote that post in a very general way, so that other missionaries could use it and share it. And though everything I mentioned was true of me, it was true over a 12-year span. It’s not necessarily true now. I am glad you read it, but I kept thinking that I wanted to say more to you–the people who know me personally, either in person or through my writing.

Yes, I have often felt like a failure. Yes, I have just as many personal sins as any Christian anywhere. Yes, I have often struggled with what to tell you because I fear your judgment. Yes, I have often felt disconnected with those who sent us out.

But I am not faking the joy.

We returned to Tanzania because there was a significant need we were gifted to fill. And there is joy in significance and there is satisfaction in filling a need. There is always joy–in a deep conversation with a student, in that light that goes on when someone understands an important concept, in a changed life. There is joy in learning. There is even a way to find joy in feeling ignored or going without or being afraid because of how hard things points us to Jesus.

True, we had a lot to learn. Sometimes I see those 20-something young people, with passion in their eyes and fire in their bellies, ready to go change the world for Jesus. And I want to pat them gently on the head and say, Be teachable, Younglings. You have no idea what is about to hit you.

Gil and I pushed through the difficult years of early marriage–through 6, 7, 8 years (it takes a long time, doesn’t it?) before heading out into relatively peaceful waters. We pushed through thousands of cultural mistakes into a place where we could have a voice here. We persevered through years of struggle of living in a developing country. When I look back on the early years of this blog, I am amused by how many posts were about electricity and driving and shopping. How much it consumed me then, and how little I worry about it now in comparison. Part of that is because Tanzania has changed for the better. Part of it is because I just got used to it. And part of it is because we adapted our lives, like when we purchased two forms of back-up power.

And we adapted our expectations for our support back home. We don’t sit around and wait for people to come to us anymore. We realize that people are busy and distracted (just like we are!) and it’s unrealistic (and arrogant) to expect a red-carpet. So instead, we take the initiative to come to you–to your groups and meetings–and we find that once we are there, people are very interested and supportive and encouraging.

We’ve learned and grown a lot, but we’ve also changed our expectations, and that’s half the battle.

So yeah, there’s the failure, and the loss, and the rejection. But what I also want to tell you is that the joy keeps increasing, and increasing exponentially. When students come back and tell us about the impact they are having on others. When pastors come back and tell us that their church went from 10 to 105 in one year. When we can get through new struggles because we have the experience of the old ones. We have incredibly deep friendships here. We have fun. We like life, most of the time. The longer we stay, the more the joy increases. It just took a while to really get going.

I do want to be real with you; I do want you to understand what myself and other missionaries feel and experience. But I don’t want you to either put me on a pedestal or feel sorry for me. Many years ago, I believed John Piper when he said Missions is gain! Missions is hundredfold gain! And I believed Jesus when he said that if I gave up houses and family that I would get a hundredfold in return. That in losing my life I would find it.

I don’t know if every missionary you know is there yet. I don’t know if I could have said it myself ten years ago. But the longer I live, the more God’s promises prove to be true.

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

By Amy Medina

On February 1, 2017

In Other

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?

By Amy Medina

On January 5, 2017

In Other

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.

The Cost I Didn’t Count

By Amy Medina

On November 15, 2016

In Other

It’s been two years and four months since we’ve been to America, and it will be at least another four months before we do go. This is new territory for me. In my entire life, I’ve never been overseas more than two years without visiting home.

For most of this year, our plan was to go home for November and December. According to that plan, we should be there right now. But we still don’t have a passport for our sweet boy, and so we wait.

This is not the first time we’ve had to change plans because of one of our kids. It’s happened more times than I can remember, actually. But Gil and I took turns traveling during those instances, so each of us had at least been able to visit for a couple of weeks.

I don’t usually get homesick anymore. But this season, I am. I now have three nephews I have yet to meet. We would have been there for three birthdays and Gil’s folks’ 40th anniversary. When you imagine yourself spending the holidays with your family, and you think it’s going to happen, and then it doesn’t, somehow it hurts more. My parents are coming out again for Christmas, and I am thrilled, but it’s not the same as going home.

The weird thing is that this is home. It’s home for us, and home for our kids. I can simultaneously long to be home and yet be home at the same time. There’s just not any other way to explain it.

Lily came home with this page last year. It was part of a lesson about staying safe, and the kids were supposed to fill in the blanks with the people in their life that they can trust.

Lily wrote, “Dad, Amy (aka Mom), Uncle Mark, Aunt Alyssa, Uncle Ben, Aunt Lauren.” Mark and Alyssa and Ben and Lauren are some of our dearest friends here, and have crossed over into the family category. Lily has known all of them for as long as she can remember. She loves them, and they love her, as family. I was simultaneously deeply touched and utterly heartbroken by what Lily wrote.

In Between Worlds, Marilyn Gardner writes, “Our parents felt the ache of distance from blood relatives,
but as children we were perfectly content with this version of family.” Yes. It was true for me as a child as well. I missed my grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, but I had dozens of surrogates, and I was happy. It’s only now, as an adult, that I truly understand that pain.

For so long, I thought only of my own sacrifice in moving overseas, of what I was giving up, of what I would lose. Now I have a deeper understanding of the sacrifice of those left behind, of their lost memories of first steps and birthdays and Thanksgivings and Christmases and family vacations. As Marilyn poignantly describes, “Most of all there has been the daily life that had to
readjust to the absence of the ones who left, daily life minus extra spots at
dinner tables and extra voices in conversations.” I hurt for them. I hurt for what we have done to them. It is a cost I didn’t fully understand when we signed up for this life.

It’s ironic how so much about cross-cultural work is all about adaptation. Because that’s always the goal, isn’t it? And we celebrate when we have adapted, when we aren’t homesick anymore and we do feel at home and we have put down roots. But then comes the stark realization that with that adaptation comes more pain. And it’s a pain that you can’t just get over or work through, because there is no solution for it. It feels like a betrayal of those you love. You’re thankful that you and your kids have fallen in love with people and places in your new country, but you realize it comes at the expense of those you left behind.

We can’t live two lives. Whatever happens here, doesn’t happen there. It’s loss, and there’s just no other way to describe it. We gain, but we lose at the same time. And more importantly, so do the people we love.

Jesus said that everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for his sake will receive a hundred times as much. Is that also true for those left behind?

When the American Church Fails Its Missionaries

By Amy Medina

On October 6, 2016

In Other

Here are some people you need to meet:

Omega and Julie Edwards have lived in Tanzania for two years. Omega is a medical doctor who gave up a lucrative career to train medical workers and church planters in East Africa. They are some of the most generous, humble, and faithful people I know.

The Edwards family has been in the States since April, trying to raise financial partnerships to return. Though they enjoy ministering to their community in California, they were hoping to come back to Tanzania in August for the start of the school year, but the funding wasn’t there. So they sent their 9th grade daughter here ahead of them. Now it’s October. Though they are so grateful for their financial supporters, they still only have 81% of what they need. When Omega returns, he will join the leadership of our team in Tanzania. We really need him. They are ready for their life to start here again. They desperately want to be reunited with their daughter. Yet still, they wait. The funding has still not come in.

Rebecca Laarman is the academic counselor at Haven of Peace Academy. Her job is to help juniors and seniors transition to college, but in reality she does so much more than that. She is a mentor, friend, and advocate for these students. She invests countless hours of her own time every week answering text messages, listening to, and discipling these young people. The students adore her and her impact on them cannot be minimized. This is Rebecca’s fourth year at HOPAC, and she wants to stay longer, but she’s not sure she will be able to. Despite her persistent prayers and effort, Rebecca has never been able to raise adequate financial support.

These stories are far too common. There are many others I could list here, like Marc and Gretchen Driesenga, who teach Bible and disciple students at HOPAC–and also are not sure whether they can continue in their ministry due to funding. The stories could be repeated among missionaries all over the world.

I have been praying fervently for these friends, and many others like them. I have seen firsthand how committed, driven, and strategic they are. They need to be here. They need to stay here. But that can only happen with enough financial support.

Which is why I was particularly depressed to read a new study that came out this week on American church spending. The study reports that ‘only 52% of churches spend 10% or more of their current church budget on ministry beyond their own congregation.’

Included in that 10% (which, remember, is only half of American churches to begin with) are soup kitchens, harvest festivals, community outreach….and foreign missions. I’m not a math person….but could we safely estimate this means that American churches overall devote maybe 2-5% of their budgets to overseas missionaries?

Friends, this is sad. And pathetic. And one day, I believe, we will be held responsible.

The United States makes up less than 5% of the world’s population. Yet Americans hold 41.2% of the world’s wealth. 90% of Americans qualify as either upper-middle income or high income on a global scale.

Ninety percent.

Americans are expected to spend 8.4 billion dollars on Halloween this year. 8.4 billion dollars. Let that sink in.

Yet even though 27% of Americans call themselves evangelical, Rebecca and the Edwards family can’t get the funding to stay in Tanzania.

I am dismayed today. But I am not angry at you personally. Every month I see the list of people and churches who have sacrificially given to our ministry and I know how humbly dependent we are on them. We are eternally grateful to those who support us financially. I personally know several families–who are certainly reading this blog–who are living a lifestyle far below their salary…for the sake of the gospel. That could be you too. I am not pointing fingers.

But I do know that corporately, as a nation of the wealthiest Christian churches in the world, God will hold us in judgement for our inability to get missionaries to the field faster and keep them there longer. Something is wrong. Something needs to change.

Let me be real with you: It’s tough for missionaries to talk about this. I don’t know a single missionary who says, “I love support raising!” It’s hard. It’s humiliating. It’s exhausting. The only reason I have the courage to write this today is because I am advocating for my friends and not for myself. It’s just so discouraging to see so many missionaries worn out from the stress of living far below their budget, or just giving up completely because of finances. These are people who want to be here. It’s hard enough to find godly and strategic overseas missionaries–can’t we trust our Church to keep them there?

I unequivocally believe that not every Christian is called work cross-culturally. But every Christian is called to participate in the Great Commission. God has granted the United States unprecedented wealth and resources. It is our responsibility to stand with those who are sent out. To whom much has been given, much will be required.

Please, American Church, I believe you can do better than this. Find a way.

For more about the Edwards family, click hereor go hereto donate (account #2016).

For more about Rebecca or how to donate to her ministry, click here.