Four Things This Missionary Won't Tell You (But actually will, because he just did...)

There’s a blog post that’s being shared all over facebook that describes the 10 things missionaries won’t tell you. And I’ll admit, I read it. I resonated with a lot of it. And I shared it along with 10,000+ other people (incidentally, that one post has been shared almost as many times as this blog has been seen in the last 7 years combined). It was on my timeline for all of 7 minutes. Then I took it down.

I took it down because, though there’s much I agree with, there were parts that I, well, didn’t so much. It could have been his point, it could’ve been the tone, but either way, I realized that I didn’t want everything he said to be taken as what I would say. It’s not.

And then I realized, I’m a missionary. I have thoughts. And I have a blog. It may be a blog that nobody really reads, and it might need some serious updating, but it’s out there. And I can use it to write my own “things that this missionary won’t tell you but really does because we are open books in this house”. So here’s my list. I’m not speaking for other missionaries here – this is all me.

Our African "wildlife"

First off, communication. We know we need to write more updates and send more thank you notes. We are constantly talking about how we need to update our blog. And it’s not because we aren’t writers that we don’t update. (Well, that’s part of why I don’t update. Tiffany’s a writer, so that’s not really her reason.) I don’t write many updates because, as hard as this might be to believe, there’s really not that much to talk about most of the time.

Yes, we live in Africa, but we don’t have wild animals wandering around outside our house. We have two dogs and a cat. Our neighbors next door have some goats. Across the street, more dogs. Want to see traditional African wildlife? We can take a three-hour car ride to the game park and see some there if we’re lucky.

Yes, we are missionaries doing full-time ministry. But, much like those in full-time ministry in the US, that doesn’t mean we are seeing people trusting in Christ by the hundreds on a day-to-day basis. It doesn’t even mean we are out in the community spending countless hours building relationships with the local people. Because the people we work with have jobs, and families, and lives, just like we do. We build relationships and spend time with them when we can and when they can, but it’s not an every day thing. In fact, my typical day involves waking up (probably way earlier than I want to because the dogs are barking or Michael decides to wake up), doing my quiet time while I drink my coffee, then spending a bajillion hours holed away in my office reading and researching and planning and writing training materials. A few times in the week I’m able to have a brief phone conversation with a local sports minister or pastor. Wednesdays I spend most of the morning working in our garden, and then in the afternoon I make macaroni and cheese for my lunch/dinner. Basically, if you spend a day with me, you’d be bored out of your mind. And so I don’t write about it, because it’d be about as interesting to read as Little Women (which I will admit I haven’t read, but if it’s anything like the movie, I would imagine passing a kidney stone to be more enjoyable).

Which brings me to my second point: prayer requests. We need your prayers, and we deeply appreciate everybody who has been and continues to pray for us. We try to keep you all updated with our more pressing and immediate concerns, whether it’s illness or upcoming meetings or something involving the people we work with. But, that’s not all we need prayer for. Life in full-time ministry is hard, living and working on a spiritual battlefield. It’s true in the US, and it’s true here. We get down. We have bad days (weeks?). We question our effectiveness and even our calling from time to time. But we don’t always share all of these requests with everybody. In fact, I’ll even say that we probably need the most prayer when you haven’t heard anything from us in a while. Sometimes it gets so hard, we don’t know how to articulate it, so we don’t say anything at all.

Next up, money. Not all missionaries have to raise support; we do. But we haven’t found this to be some great burden that we must do in order to do what we want to do. We have been blown away time and again by the way God has provided for our needs, as we have never found ourselves under-supported and unable to continue. I have a friend who recently wrote a book about support-raising as worship, and really, it is. It is an opportunity for us to share what God is doing around the world, and it is an opportunity for people to join in this work. It’s not our work or our ministry; it’s God’s work. We may be on the front lines, but we aren’t the only ones involved. And assembling this team has been one of the greatest encouragements in ministry. Thank you to all who are a part of it.

Finally, loneliness. Yes, we are lonely. I mean, is that really surprising to anybody? Missionaries leave their friends and family behind and move to a new and different place. Obviously we are lonely. And that gets amplified by a number of factors. Yes, I have a relationship with Christ so I’m never actually alone. Yes, I have a wonderful wife who I love spending time with. But, I’m an extrovert, so not having people around me with whom I can relate is extremely draining, and I can’t put the responsibility on introverted somewhat-less-extroverted-than-meTiffany to keep me energized and entertained all day every day. The longer we live in Zambia, this becomes less of an issue as we are better able to relate with the Zambian people without necessarily feeling like we have to be “on” in order to be culturally relevant and appropriate. But, it’s still an issue.

But sometimes loneliness comes because the people around us, with whom we should be able to relate well, we just don’t get along with for one reason or another. Yes, everybody deals with conflict between coworkers from time to time. I get that. But when you live in a completely different country and these are the only people around who share a similar background, it’s hard. You can feel like you have nobody else to lean on, and so you end up feeling…lonely. (Caveat: I’m not saying we don’t get along with our fellow missionaries here. I’m simply saying that, even a small disagreement can seem bigger and more difficult because you’re not on the same page with the people around you who are inherently most like you.)

And though we are lonely, we are often too proud to say so. Or, we don’t know how to say it. I mean, do you get on facebook and say “I’m really lonely today. Maybe somebody should say hi”? But we do get on facebook. And we do appreciate when people “like” what we say. I actually click through to find out who “likes” it. Because it tells me that, though you may not have anything to say back, you at least acknowledge our existence, and that makes us feel a little bit more connected to somebody. (Interestingly enough, facebook stalking is just as creepy to us here, so if you’re going to mention one of our posts in a future conversation with us, please at least like what we had to say.)

This isn’t really a cry for attention – well, maybe a little one. It’s just a simple request from this missionary. I don’t often say write much, but when I do, I like to know if people are listening reading.

So, that’s my long list of only four things that this missionary won’t say but actually just did. I’m sure there are more, and this may be followed by an addendum or two in the future.