What comes to your mind when you think of a mission trip? What are your expectations when someone tells you they are about to leave for an 11 month mission trip to 11 different countries? What kind of ministry do you stir up in your imagination? Maybe playing with a bunch of smiling kids of all sorts of different shapes and sizes? Maybe teaching english and fun stories from the bible to the little orphans? Or maybe, going out on the streets with a microphone, a speaker and a translator and proclaiming the Gospel through biblical truth and a testimony, while hundreds line up to be prayed for? Or maybe, sitting with an old sick widow hearing her story over a cup of tea and then praying for healing and seeing her not only get healed but also turn her life to Jesus? Yeah, all of these things are valid and actually do happen in a life of a missionary. But what really happens behind the scenes of the selfies with the smiling orphans, the photo of the smiling old African women and her cup of tea or the pictures of hundreds of people lining up to be prayed for?
The life of a missionary is not always has glamorous as it may seem through the lens of a Nikon or Canon DSLR camera. The camera can only capture so much of what really goes on through the mind and life of missionary. There are countless of unrecorded and non-captured moments of missionaries weeping on their knees after witnessing little children with torn up clothes, bruises from being abused, and shoes with holes or no shoes at all. Watching kids scramble to the front of the line to get their plate of food that they may only get once a day or even once a week. Moments of holding and cleaning up little kids while they cry from being rejected by the other kids because they have pooped in their only pair clothes for the day. We weep not only for the children, but for the single mothers, the fathers who have abandoned their families, for the 12-year-old girl taking care of her 5 bothers and sisters and managing all parental responsibilities. But that is just a glimpse.
Let us not forget the amount of bruises and scratches and sore muscles from shoveling dirt and bricks to help clean up the care-points so the kids will have a safe place to play. There are a number of hard labor hours that come in play as a missionary. Building play grounds, fixing sewage drains, painting schools and churches, moving bricks and dirt and picking up trash to be burnt only to see the trash back the next day. Hours of losing sleep to a night full of prayer and tears for the people who God loves so dearly but have no clue how valued their lives truly are.
In these moments of grumbling and complaining about the heat, heavy shovel loads of bricks, cleaning up trash, the amount of exhaustion and not eating enough for breakfast. The lord gently reminds us as to why he sent us. It is not for ourselves and for our own comfort. But it is to draw us out of our own comfort and world in order to bring us into a world ready to be changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God knew we would be uncomfortable, that is why he called the Holy Spirit the Comforter. We are a people willing to step outside of the status quo and explore the possibilities that our broken lives may be used to bring healing and life to someone else.
Although, there are thousands of moments of victory stories about salvations, healing, redemptions and joy. The greatest victories that we get to come by are the ones that come through the toughest of situations. The victories that only come through pain and suffering, the victories that come from weeping on our knees in prayer and the victories that come by living life as a broken vessel with other broken vessels.
Photos and videos can paint a pretty solid picture of what a life of a missionary looks like, but you will never truly know what it looks like until you step foot into the shoes of a missionary.
P.S. I will be posting a new video of our time in Swaziland soon..so be on the look out on my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgm4d7zuSGXY0yy5fDR8meQ
