I signed up for the Race with a specific mental picture of me as a missionary. I imagined every day as a grand adventure packed with service and ministry opportunities, pouring out into the communities and locals in every country on this 11-month journey. Over the past few weeks my definition of “missions” has changed.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely serving people on a daily basis. Just yesterday I was writing postcards and trying to sum up all the different types of ministry I’ve done over the past four months, and I got exhausted just thinking about it. For example…
We renovated a Sunday School building for a church plant in El Salvador.
We did outreach events for widows in Guatemala.
We did door-to-door evangelism in Honduras (along with several other ministries).
We tutored children in a sponsorship program in Nicaragua.
And just for your enjoyment, we also coached baseball in Nicaragua. Yes, me. I helped coach baseball.
And while I have absolutely adored every single one of these activities (trust me, this is the happiest I have ever been in my life), God has been showing me that being a missionary doesn’t necessarily mean serving the local community. Sometimes it’s about serving those who serve.
It all started at the end of Month 2, Guatemala. I received news that my grandmother had passed away, and I had to choose whether or not I would go home for the funeral. I cried and cried trying to decide. I wanted to go home to mourn with my family, but I felt that I would be “cheating” on the World Race, abandoning our ministry (although temporarily) and getting to experience the luxuries of home while my squadmates were “stuck” in the challenges of life in Central America. As I expressed these feelings amidst my tears, my squadmate Patrick said, “Betsy, go home and enjoy those things for those of us who can’t.”
I bought my plane ticket and announced to my team that I would be leaving the next day. I let them know that if they had any requests for products from the States, I was happy to bring them back. I landed stateside with a list that included Poptarts, Crest 3D White toothpaste, an ESV Bible, a baseball cap, and a teach-yourself-Spanish book, among other things. But there was one item that was of the highest priority: Chick-fil-a.
Originally the plan was to purchase the Chick-fil-a in the Atlanta airport on the way to Honduras to meet my team. Easy peezy, no problem. Then due to an unexpected snowstorm I had to change my flight to Sunday–Sunday, the ONE day of the week when Chick-fil-a is closed. All hope was lost. My teammates thought that there was no way they would be reunited with their beloved chicken.
Little did they know that I wasn’t giving up on the cause. (It’s amazing what you can do when you say, “I’m a missionary on leave and want to take food back to my teammates in Honduras. What can you do for me?”) Through some crazy strategizing I was able to bring the chicken across international borders as a surprise. My teammates were excited, to say the least. Take a look at the video documenting their reaction: Click here!
There was screaming, crying, shouts of joy and Hallelujahs, all because of chicken. Chicken! But even though this clearly brought them happiness, I would say that it made my day even more than it made theirs. To see their faces light up, to know that I had given them a little taste of home, to see them refreshed right when they needed it… I can’t even tell you how happy it made me. I had helped sustain some weary missionaries, renewing them for the next part of the Race.
From that first experience God has shown me time and time again how important this “supporter” role is in making international missions successful. In Honduras we had the pleasure of getting a cultural briefing from the wonderful Marcy Fenn, whose entire ministry is to assist missionaries in vision-casting and cultural adjustment. As someone who loves anthropology and culture and language and all those wonderful things, I was in heaven. It was so neat to see the benefit of her workshop for us as short-term missionaries, and I can only imagine how beneficial her knowledge and expertise would be to someone who has committed their entire life to missions. Marcy has recognized the need for a guiding hand in the transition phase of the missionary life, and I admire her so much for rising to meet that need. (Check out Marcy’s ministry at www.atcministries.org)
And just as missionaries need assurance from someone who’s been through it before, sometimes they just need the support of a community of fellow missionaries. God showed this to me in our month in Nicaragua, where we worked with New Song Ministries, our first United States-ian ministry contact of the entire Race. This group of gringos in the middle of Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, does a phenomenal job of pouring out to the local community while simultaneously pouring into each other. The New Song missionaries live together, worship together, fellowship together (we had the pleasure of singing karaoke with them), and just do life together in general. They were a breath of fresh air for us, a nice change of pace, and experiencing their little community, even for just a brief amount of time, showed me how important the church body is in this sense. They are constantly building each other up, encouraging hard work and days of rest, and providing a safehaven for one another in what can be an overwhelming profession. They exhibit Jesus in the streets of Chichigalpa and within the four walls of their mission house.
In general, I have loved seeing this new, unexpected side of missions. I’m not sure what this means for me personally, but I am thankful that God has revealed this to me early on in the Race. We need a new definition of “missions.” It’s not necessarily about holding orphans or teaching English or preaching, although those things are definitely key elements. Sometimes the calling is to be the support system, to serve those who serve. God can use anyone to further the Kingdom, even those who are never in the spotlight.
“For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” [2 Corinthians 12:14-27]
