“Looking unto Jesus . . . who for the JOY that was set before Him endured . . . ” —Hebrews 12:2
Serving as one of “God’s foreigners” is not for wimps. Going international as an ambassador for Christ involves culture shock and ongoing culture and climate stress, struggling to learn and use a new language effectively, discouragements within marriage and family, health problems, conflicts with missionary and national colleagues, loneliness, disappointment, and spiritual fatigue. We can tell it like it is. Most missionaries, at one time or another, have been tempted to throw in the towel. Yet when enduring by God’s grace over the long haul, the joys far outweigh the sorrows.
Consider the joy of learning to love a foreign people.
Their ways at first seem strange, their language you initially cannot understand, their religion is enslaving, and their attitudes are sometimes hostile toward you. As God’s foreigner in that culture, pouring out your life for the people, you are amazed to see how Calvary love changes you. Increasingly you understand, appreciate, accept, and identify with them. Eventually, you are startled to realize how precious they have become to you—even more than lifelong friends back home!
Consider the joy of communicating Christ in a new tongue.
Somehow you survive years of exhausting language study and discover one day that it is beginning to make sense! Can that really be a glimmer of recognition in the eye of the listener as you try to convey the gospel in those strange sounds? Why are you choking back tears? Could it be the surging emotion triggered by those smiles of understanding as you preach your first sermon in Cantonese? Bangla? Spanish? Afrikaans? Can it really be that the lad in the back row is perched on the edge of his seat, drinking in every word as you proclaim the Good News in his native tongue? People back home will never understand this joy, no matter how hard you try to explain the thrill of leading your first soul to Christ in Japanese, using the Japanese Bible.
Consider the joy of walking with God through crisis and finding Him sufficient.
In cross-cultural ministry, the props are gone—no English-preaching services, no home-pastor to whom you can go for counsel, sometimes no Christian radio. At times you are alone in the valley of despair. But Jesus meets you there, and you know Him in a new way as you taste the “fellowship of His sufferings” and endure.
Daily you face injustice, poverty, disease, danger, degradation, and death among your adopted people. Often you find yourself weeping with them that weep, learning with them to keep trusting when it is impossible to understand the hidden and higher ways of God. You learn to live by faith with unanswered questions.
Eventually, you learn that His strength really is “made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). You observe the incredible power of the blood of Christ to deliver from evil, and you stand in awe at the supreme authority of the Name which is above every name—the name of Jesus!
Consider the joy of growing deeper through stress and struggle.
Pressure produces patience and perseverance in the Spirit-controlled life. Learning to fail successfully, by submitting humbly to God’s testing when you fall short and allowing the discipline of disappointment to draw you closer to Christ, enables you to walk on and bear even more fruit with a broken and contrite heart. Surviving setbacks and tragedies with a steadfast spirit produces an inner strength and resiliency you never knew before. Purified and energized after testing, you become an overcomer in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Consider the joy of raising a close-knit family in the real world of spiritual warfare.
In difficult circumstances, your family can enjoy the special closeness of common commitment to Christ and to one another. Your heart leaps with joy as you see your children accept the nationals as brothers and sisters, and as they consider their adopted country home! They develop a compassionate color-blindness, an appreciation for local customs, a depth of understanding about culture, a breadth of vision that withers prejudice and provincialism. And they receive a heritage to treasure!
You rest in the assurance that the God who does all things well will nurture, protect, and develop your precious MKs into young men and women of character, godly ambition, global perspective, and spiritual vibrancy. The stewardship of God’s treasured gifts—the children He has given you—could not be honored in any setting more pleasing to the Lord than on the mission field.
Consider the joy of reaping a harvest.
Having sown with tears, eventually you reap with joy. Can you imagine any privilege greater than introducing the Savior to people who never before were aware of one true God who loves them personally with an everlasting love? Imagine lighting a flickering candle in great darkness and watching it grow into an unquenchable fire!
Picture yourself starting a struggling congregation where none existed before, and seeing it grow gradually into an independent local church reaching the community with Calvary love! It would be amazing to watch your little church reproduce itself over and over, becoming the first link in a chain of church multiplication, realizing that God actually used you in a small way to keep His promise (Matthew 16:18) that despite the furious and futile raging of the “gates of hell,” Christ will build His church!
You could be there, discovering this joy too.
Recent Stories
5/3/12
May 2012 G.R.A.C.E. Investigation Report
G.R.A.C.E. Investigation; 1-year update
4/16/12
Mary Lou Brownell passes away at 82
Brownell served in Bangladesh and the Home Office for many years.
3/27/12
Corabelle Stowell, wife of longest-serving Board member in ABWE history, passes away
Her husband, Dr. Joseph Stowell II, went home to be with the Lord in June 2007
