I Love Missions

A Different Worldview

Several Sundays ago, our pastor at Central Assembly in Springfield, Missouri, said emphatically, “I love missionaries.” I smiled and thought, I hardily agree. As I thought about my response, my mind flashed back to a basement Sunday School room in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where nearly every month missionaries told us stories of God’s grace and forgiveness. They wore their national dress and allowed us to touch curios that gave us a glimpse of far-away cultures. What treat for a 6-year-old!

I was much older when I realized that these godly men and women had significantly influenced my worldview. They directed my thinking outside that small hometown and taught me that God is no respecter of persons.

We often sang, red, yellow, black and white, they are precious in God’s sight. I knew this was true because missionaries told me that people outside the United States were finding Christ as Savior, experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit and being healed physically.

Our world is much smaller today. A variety of media gives us insights from overseas that I never imagined as a child. But only missionaries and missionary-loving pastors and believers can instill in our children a love for people that are different than us in every way.

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A Promise Fulfilled

Within a few days, I leave for a short-term teaching assignment at a Bible school in Romania. The privilege of traveling, working with missionaries and helping students develop their writing skills for media ministries is the fulfillment of a promise God gave me during one of the lowest times of my life.

In January 1991, I was sitting in our car in front of the rehab unit at the Pittsfield Medical Center in Massachusetts while therapists worked with my husband, Tony, who had lost a leg in late November. He had resigned the pastorate, and we would vacate the parsonage soon. Disability funds would not be available for six months; we had a son in college and no savings.

We had decided to move to Springfield, Missouri, so our son could live with us and finish his studies at Evangel College. How could we move without any money? Where would we live? How would I find a job in a new city? The saddest part was that we were leaving people we loved and would no longer have a place of ministry. I didn’t feel forsaken, I simply felt numb and so scared I couldn’t even cry anymore to mourn our losses.

I dismissed those thoughts and picked up a Christian magazine that I had brought to read. One of the articles mentioned that God was opening doors in Russia for the spread of the gospel. As I read about new opportunities for missionaries to start Bible schools, I sensed the Holy Spirit saying, “You will teach in overseas Bible schools.” I remember wondering how will that could ever happen, but I tucked those words in my spirit, hoping they were from God.

He did not fulfill that promise immediately, but this is my sixth overseas teaching assignment. He has been faithful.

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Up the Down Escalator

I smiled as I watched a few Chi Alpha students struggle to climb the down escalator at the recent World Missions Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were laughing all the way to the top. What fun they were having! I’ve thought about the incident over the past few days in several ways.

Sometimes we choose the most difficult way in life. When God asks us to simply follow Him, we carve out our own path thinking that our way is best. Going God’s direction just doesn’t look like much fun. We laugh as we ignore the obvious danger and struggle to keep our balance spiritually. We may finally reach our destination, but the path was much more difficult than God had planned.

At other times, God chooses a path that is seemingly one of constant hardship. Some missionaries face spiritual darkness and daily disappointments, failure and insecurity in a culture that is not pleasant. Some work for several years before they see their first convert. Without consistent electricity, pure water and American conveniences, their lives are not easy. But it’s God’s path and they have joyfully accepted the assignment. God gives them the same comfort He gave the apostle Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

When we choose a path that seems pleasant but is not in God’s direction, the outcome may not be good. When God chooses the way, however, victory is always assured, even if difficulties meet us around every corner.

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Thank you, Grandma

When I was in grade school in the mid-50s (yes, I’m that old), the company that produced filler paper bound the sheets with a four-inch wrapper that featured a movie star. The elementary-age craze was to collect all the photos and exchange them with friends.
My grandparents sold the paper in their general store so I could choose the photo I wanted. Although I knew nothing about celebrities or movies (that was not part of our Pentecostal culture), I was soon caught up in the activity.
Grandma thought it was useless – maybe even sinful. One afternoon, she told me that movie stars did not live by God’s rules. “These people should not be your heroes,” she said. “I don’t want you to pattern your life after them.” Then she handed me a small scrapbook. “I want you to see how many missionary prayer cards and autographs you can get in this book,” she added.
Over the next seven or so years – until I became a teenager, I was the first in line to speak with the missionary after a missions service. I sought them out when we attended camp meetings and listened intently to their messages. Each prayer card was carefully glued on the page next to the missionary’s signature, and the scrapbook became my highest treasure.
God touched my heart through the kindness of a host of missionaries who took time to fulfill a little girl’s request. Missionaries are my heroes today, and I’m still moved by their stories of God’s intervention in peoples’ lives.

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